Tell Me Your Thoughts On Privacy vs. GeoLocation

[barefootbob]

The one thing I would be concerned about is some whacko getting my exact location, or someone who has a nonviolent but nefarious intent. One of the reasons I don't have a face pic on sites

[Newportwp]

I think Geolocation is the way to go with todays hook up sites, specially with the nature of what us guys like doing. I think to stop people easily deleting their profiles you should only allow one registration per email address set for a period of time so if they delete the profile they can not immediately create it without going through using another email address. Instead of deleting you could encourage people to use a "temporarily hide your profile" feature which stops the profile coming up in a search but still accessible to people that have associated their profiles together.

Guys tend to get horny and need to meet quickly for cum so geolocation would be the key to making the site successful but guys sometimes also like to log in and chat and just get off chatting to like minded people. In that case guys may want to turn off Geolocation as an option. Or looking at it another way Geolocation could be turned off by default but guys could go and select a "i am horny" box add a tag line and their geolocation becomes available for a period of hours they could set. That way people that want sex get to see who else is horny.

They key to trust is having a long term profile and I think for people to do that you need a combination of people logging in when they are horny and logging in when they just want to chat to like minded guys. I would certainly use that type of site and as I travel I would definitely use it to find guys to cum swap with.

[Guest manfun456]

I agree with NEwportwp - I like the idea of geolocation off by default but activate it with an "I am horny" button.

[TigerMilner]

Great idea! There are times when I would turn it on. Like when I'm in a hotel. Excellent suggestion.

I agree with NEwportwp - I like the idea of geolocation off by default but activate it with an "I am horny" button.

[rawTOP]

I agree with NEwportwp - I like the idea of geolocation off by default but activate it with an "I am horny" button.

That is not going to happen. It sorta makes no sense. It means you can't find guys near you and make connections except when they're horny. If guys just want to chat, they can come here. Also, there's the critical mass issue. If you login and don't see anyone online you won't want to come back.

That said, I do understand some of the motivations behind your concerns. I'm trying to figure out the balance between the features you really need without going overboard to the point where there are so many features it gets confusing.

Instead of deleting you could encourage people to use a "temporarily hide your profile" feature which stops the profile coming up in a search but still accessible to people that have associated their profiles together.

This, however, is along the lines of what I was thinking. "Deletion" will mean something like 6 to 12 months of being hidden, followed by actual deletion. That way people can take a break but still reclaim their profiles if they want and start back where they left off.

Edited February 8, 2014 by rawTOP

[NiceHard1]

I personally like the BBRT feature of entering your zip code as an identifier. Even in a big city like NY, a zip code is a small enough geographic area to "ball park" when looking for someone near you, but not so specific to be an invasion of privacy. The only thing that I don't like about BBRT is that you need to figure out what your zip code is if you are traveling and don't know it. So it might be nice to have a look up feature where someone could type their address, which would not be entered or displayed, but only used to obtain the zip code.

Didn't you at one time display member locations on a map on this site? I liked that feature here!

[NLbear]

The only thing that I don't like about BBRT is that you need to figure out what your zip code is if you are traveling and don't know it.

Just google the address and you know...?

Edited February 8, 2014 by rawTOP

[rawTOP]

Even in a big city like NY, a zip code is a small enough geographic area to "ball park" when looking for someone near you, but not so specific to be an invasion of privacy.

I disagree. I want to know who's within walking distance and I never can tell on zip code based systems like BBRT. Often the zip code isn't where they actually are, and even if it is, there are parts of my zip code that are a long walk away, and parts of other zip codes that are just a couple blocks away. There are better tools for geolocation these days.

The only thing that I don't like about BBRT is that you need to figure out what your zip code is if you are traveling and don't know it. So it might be nice to have a look up feature where someone could type their address, which would not be entered or displayed, but only used to obtain the zip code.

I'll have a feature on the site to find the location of addresses.

Didn't you at one time display member locations on a map on this site? I liked that feature here!

Yes, but then it broke and since it was written by someone else, utilized data that's now really old, and not all that important, I never fixed it. However, that map didn't give actual location. It was more of a rough guess of a location that at best was a few blocks off.

[btm2bbred]

.........Or imagine you're in a bathhouse or a bar – you want to know what other guys are in that bathhouse/bar. I suppose some stalker could figure out you're in the bar, but it's different than knowing your home address. Agree?

The solution I'm thinking of right now would be "1/2 mile or the distance to the 10th closest member – whichever is less, plus if you're within 250 feet of a gay venue (or check in at that gay venue) the site will show you as being at that gay venue." Will that make people like you (and TigerMiller) happy? Can "10th member" be lowered to 8th or 5th?

One other thing I could do is ask people whether their location is Big City/Mid-Size City/Suburban/Small Town/Rural and have different rules for each. So it could be 1/2 mile for urban, 1 mile for suburban or mid-size city, 3 miles for small town, and 5 miles for rural. Then I'd just look at how the 20 closest known locations were rated and take the most frequent response and use that rule set.

To be clear, CumdumpNetwork.com will be a completely different site based on BBBH.com data. The location shown for them will be whatever they want it to be. So they can choose a major intersection near them, or the city center if they're in a small town. In other words CDN has it's own rules and isn't the core of what I'm trying to understand with this thread.

RawTOP's proposal from .5 mile for Big City to 5 mile for Rural sounds like a good solution. Protects privacy, but shows who is reasonably close depending on your preferred mode of transportation--i.e. Walking for big city; motor vehicle for rural.

For Big Cities that have subways, mass transit is a reasonable alternative to walking or driving, too. I would hope the BBBH members could specify how wide a search they want for hookups, say <10 miles, with closest hookups listed first, and furthest listed last. Much like the hotel web sites list hotels based on distance from the city center.

I know you are concentrating on the location settings now, but when it comes to developing the members profiles, maybe the members could specify their general location and mass transit access. Eg, in DC area something like "VA, 3 blks from Ballston Metro", or in NYC "Manhattan, 1 blk from Lex Ave, 68th St station". Just a thought.

[rawTOP]

I know you are concentrating on the location settings now, but when it comes to developing the members profiles, maybe the members could specify their general location and mass transit access. Eg, in DC area something like "VA, 3 blks from Ballston Metro", or in NYC "Manhattan, 1 blk from Lex Ave, 68th St station". Just a thought.

You can put what you want in the text of your profile, but there will be the ability to specify your neighborhood. You'll be choosing a neighborhood from a huge database of place names. That neighborhood name is meant to be descriptive, not something that people search on (though browsing by neighborhood will be possible - but it's mostly there so search engines can crawl public profiles). For example, let's say you're in a hotel in the West 40s just west of Times Square. That location could be "Times Square", "Theater District", "Hell's Kitchen", "Midtown West", "Clinton", or "Midtown" - they're all completely reasonable. You'll be able to choose whatever you want - and thereby be as descriptive (or indescript) as you like.

[barebackbears]

All self-reported data is subject to fudging. The problem with ZIP codes isn't that they're too coarse, it's that people dislike revealing intimate information and will tend to report the ZIP code where they work, or grew up, or lived 5 years ago, rather than the one they're actually in. The smaller the search radius, the greater the reporting error.

IP-based geolocation is only reliable for PCs, because mobile devices must maintain the same IP for the duration of the browsing session, but GPS is a notorious and brutal battery drainer, so you can't use it more than once per session in good conscience (and it's only as accurate as the the other guy's most recently updated coordinates, even then).

These are tough engineering problems.

Edited March 19, 2015 by barebackbears

[Guest rawbeef]

Geocoders work one of three ways:

* you tell them where you are (consent required, completely unreliable)
* the site operator can try to look it up from your IP number (consent optional, unreliable but can be accurate)
* the site operator can ask your mobile device to report its GPS coordinates (consent required, extremely reliable and accurate)

Your city, town, or village are good enough for the purpose of sorting profiles by distance. They won't be accurate within the same city but that's not really a problem, because you're not trying to find them in a snowstorm or tell them where the nearest gas station is.

Postal code lookups provide a good balance between granularity and precision, but some countries (Canada and particularly the United Kingdom) have exquisitely precise postcodes that can be accurate to the house. These folks tend to be more skittish about revealing their location even though a sortation index isn't a particularly damning statistic, but you can't blame them for being cautious.

For the nervous, if you're asked to reveal your postcode, use the one at your job or your primary school or first apartment or whatever. The operator doesn't know or care, you will mentally correct for the skewed distances, and everybody will enjoy a nice and useful feature.

 

[VersAlwaysLooking]

Geolocation is a necessary evil.  I love the products it makes possible but hate all of the privacy concerns it creates.   I have all of my browsers set not to share geolocation without my permission and I typically do not allow most sites to see my location, unless there is explicit benefit to me.   Where there is benefit to me, I share my geolocation but I'm still creeped out about it because I assume it will be stored forevermore (not to mention the record of everyplace I go).    I think a very reasonable privacy control you could implement is purging user location data within a reasonably short period of time.