<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"The developer of the controversial iPhone app \"Girls Around Me\" defended its use of Foursquare data, claiming the geolocation social network irrationally targeted the app as a \"scapegoat\".\nRussian app developer i-Free Innovations, which designed the app, sent the Wall Street Journal a statement defending its use of private information.\n\"We are absolutely convinced that it is good and important to educate the users to take care of their privacy and what they share publicly. But we believe it is unethical to pick a scapegoat to talk about the privacy concerns.  We see this wave of negative as a serious misunderstanding of the apps\u2019 goals, purpose, abilities and restrictions. Girls Around Me does not provide any data that is unavailable to user when he uses his or her social network account, nor does it reveal any data that users did not share with others. The app was intended for facilitating discovering of great public venues nearby. The app was designed to make it easier for a user to step out of door and hang out in the city, find people with common interests and new places to go to.\"\nFoursquare banned the app from using its data Friday, saying the app is a violation of its policy against aggregating information across venues.\n\"This is a violation of our API policy, so we've reached out to the developer and shut off their API access,\" a Foursquare representative said in a statement.\nApple subsequently removed the app from the App Store Saturday.\nGirls Around Me collects Foursquare data from different locations to tell users where there are a lot of girls \u2014 or guys \u2014 nearby. It then connects users to the Facebook profiles of the people it spots, so you can learn more (read: creep) on people's online lives before you meet them.\nYou can actually search for girls, guys and location by selecting \"scan.\" You'll see photo previews of who's checked in, which you can then enlarge to make sure you've located someone you want to meet. The app also connects to Facebook, so you can browse the public information on someone's profile. \n\nSEE ALSO: Highlight: Super-Hot. Now What?\nThere's a setting called \"Venue View\" which lets you check out how many people are at a particular spot, so you could, for instance, evaluate the gender ratio before deciding if a bar is worth your time. You can only use Girls Around Me if you have a Foursquare account.\nGeolocation apps are on the rise. All of South by Southwest's most-buzzed startups, including Highlight, Glancee, Sonar and Banjo, belong to that category.\nWhat do you think of Girls Around Me? Does it creep you out or is it the next frontier of connected dating? Sound off in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/04/02/girls-around-me-defense/>