A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a drink. The bartender replies, “Sure, hold on one minute. I just need your name and home address first,” and then snaps a quick photo. The patron thinks this is strange, but he’s been drinking at this bar for ten years and knows the owner personally, so he’s not too concerned and gives him the info. The bartender then pulls out his smart phone and taps away for about a minute, then puts it down and serves the drink. Curious, the guy asks the bartender what he was doing. ”Oh, that’s our new policy. Every time a customer enters the bar, we post your name, photo and address on a gigantic billboard on the highway so that thousands of people know exactly where you are right this second. It’s great advertising for us!”
Sounds a little ridiculous, right? Welcome to the latest social media rage – geo-locating. All across the country, retailers and restaurateurs are jumping on to the FourSquare bandwagon, intoxicated by visions of viral marketing and Twitter flash mobs. On its surface, it sounds like great fun for the participants and nothing but marketing upside for the purveyors. But as your mom always warned, “It’s all fun and game until someone gets hurt.” There is a dark side to this technology and I’m convinced that one day the whole geo-location fad is going to come crashing down in a huge and messy implosion. Do you want your business to be at the center?
Just Because You’re Paranoid…
…doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
Here’s my thesis. Someday in the not too distant future, some degenerate psychopath is going to track an innocent college student using a series of FourSquare (or similar service) updates on her Twitter account, then commit an unspeakable crime. Think this is unlikely? Watch this video:
Luckily, this was just a burglary. I suggest to you that this will not be the last or worst crime committed using social media and automatically (and sometimes unwittingly) broadcasting your whereabouts seems to me to be making it just a little too easy.
Although I’m not willing to put my personal safety and (more likely) that of my belongings at additional risk, there are obviously plenty of people who are. But this post isn’t focused on the individual users of geo-location. If the benefits you gain from telling people where you are outweigh the incremental risk of giving criminals a little extra help, then be my guest. This post is focused on the businesses that participate.
Risk vs. Reward
I’ll be the first to admit that the risk of this happening to your particular business is extremely small. In the risk management business, risk is calculated by multiplying the likelihood of a particular event occurring by its consequence. In this case, we have a very low risk with a very high consequence. Businesses need to make an informed, conscious decision as to whether or not the viral marketing benefits justify the risk. I’m not saying whether or not they do. I just don’t hear anybody talking about the risks associated with these services and want to spark the conversation.
My question to businesses participating in services like FourSquare is this: Do you want your business name to be the last Tweet sent by a dead college student and see it spread all over newspaper headlines and cable news broadcasts?
This may sound vile and melodramatic, but I submit to you that the sheer numbers dictate that it is very likely that something similar will happen at some point in the future. The questions are:
- Do you want your business name associated with such an incident?
- Regardless of whether or not your business is criminally liable, what do you think will happen in a civil lawsuit? Is this what you want to spend your time doing?
- What will happen to the market for geo-location after such an incident?
So let me know… am I being paranoid? I’m interested to hear from the users and merchants, especially if this kind of scenario doesn’t bother you.
