Foursquare stops cheaters in their tracks with GPS policing

Cheating at Foursquare has always been insanely easy. Check in somewhere you're not, get the points, take unearned mayorships ... no problem. In fact, there are even some loathsome new third-party services that let you pay for mayorships.

Well, Foursquare has had enough of that, especially since businesses now offer real-world perks based on checkins. They've implemented a new anti-cheating system that only gives points if you're at least somewhat near the places you check in.

You can't get around the no-cheat system by using a phone without a GPS, or turning your GPS off, either, because Foursquare is also using "a few different tricks" to prevent that. GPS locations aren't perfect, though, and sometimes that results in having a legitimate checkin ruled cheating. I guess that's what happens when people abuse the honor system as often as they have on Foursquare.

It's also worth pointing out that Foursquare competitor Gowalla has had GPS policing for some time, although their seems to be a bit tighter than Foursquare's.

Tags: cheating, checkin, foursquare, gps, location-based, mobile, policing