How Foursquare Collects, Sells, and Shares Your Personal Information
What is Foursquare?
Foursquare is a location‑based technology company that collects, analyzes, and monetizes data tied to where people go and how they move across physical places. Originally known for its check‑in social networking apps, Foursquare has shifted its core business to providing location data and analytics to enterprise customers, advertisers, and app developers. Its services process precise geolocation, device identifiers, and usage information to personalize experiences, tailor advertising, and generate insights about foot traffic and consumer behavior.
URL
foursquare.com
Support
privacy@foursquare.com
Type of Data Broker
Advertising
Aggression level
High
What Foursquare collects and how your privacy is at risk
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This company is listed in our Top 100 Most Aggressive Data Sellers based on sensitivity and reach.
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Collects and sells basic details like your name, address, phone number, and email address.
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The company’s practices pose a heightened risk for identity theft, scams, discrimination, and profiling.
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Tracks your browsing habits, online searches, shopping behaviors, and content preferences.
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Tracks and sells your location history, movements, and device-based geolocation data.
The risks shown are based on the types of personal data this company collects, sells, or shares.
Even limited data collection can expose you to serious privacy threats.
Companies like Foursquare are selling your information right now.
Most data brokers make opting out difficult or impossible. We locate your exposed data, remove it, and continue monitoring as new brokers are added.
Create your free account now to see where your data is exposed and begin securing your privacy.
How to Opt Out and Remove Your Information from Foursquare
Foursquare allows users to exercise privacy choices, including opting out of the sale or sharing of personal data for cross‑context behavioral advertising and limiting the use of sensitive personal data (such as location) under applicable privacy laws. To submit an opt‑out request, you may need your mobile advertising identifier (MAID) from your device because Foursquare’s opt‑out portal uses that info to identify your records. Requests are subject to verification and processing timelines.
Enroll in mePrism Privacy to ensure continuous monitoring and removal from Foursquare and other brokers.
Foursquare Privacy Risks and How to Remove Your Personal Data
They scrape and aggregate your personal data:
Foursquare collects precise geolocation data, device identifiers, and other usage signals when you use its apps or interact with services that embed Foursquare technology. This includes the Pilgrim location engine in mobile apps that passively tracks foot traffic and place visits, as well as APIs that process user‑generated content like tips and check‑ins. Collected data may be combined with third‑party sources to enhance user profiles and improve advertising relevance.
They engage in automatic data harvesting:
Foursquare obtains location data directly from users’ devices when users grant permissions and indirectly via software development kits (SDKs) integrated into other apps. These SDKs can send real‑time or near‑real‑time device movement data back to Foursquare for analytics. Foursquare then uses this data to power advertising, location‑based campaigns, and business insights for partners.
Opting out is possible, but removal is difficult:
Even though Foursquare offers privacy rights like deletion, access, and opt‑out of sale, practical removal can be limited by the complexity of matching data across devices and contexts. Some data may persist in aggregated or anonymized form, and many enterprise partners retain their own copies. Because of this complexity, many people find that privacy services or professional removal tools can help streamline their requests.
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