A new website - Please Rob Me - has launched to highlight one of the problems of social networking applications such as Twitter and Four Square which allow you clearly and publicly to announce to the world that you are not at home. As the website explains, "on one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home."
Four Square is a particular problem - apparently (although I'd not heard of it before today) it is a website which allows you to "check in" from wherever you are in the world, and gain points and badges for doing so. Harmless enough, except that your friends will also be checking in, and before long someone will check in from your house, telling the world what your address is. So next time you check in from the Empire State Building, or in fact from anywhere away from home, your followers will know your house is empty. And even one of those light switch timers isn't going to make them think otherwise.
What do you think?
