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Comment by pg5 | Hacker News Reader

I figured that "allow once, approximate location" would be sufficient for the privacy conscious.

A little scared to make it selectable, as it would make it much easier for spammers/scammers to target locations, as the only verification is email. I do realize they can still change their location that with an emulator.

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> A little scared to make it selectable, as it would make it much easier for spammers/scammers to target locations, as the only verification is email. I do realize they can still change their location that with an emulator.

So there's not really any hurdle at all for automated spammers who can fake their location easily, but you're making it more difficult for genuine users anyway?

My thought process was that clicking allow or allow once would be less difficult for genuine users than searching for their city.

The concern's probably that in order for location tracking to not give you their exact home location, they'd have to drive a good distance away from their home or something before allowing it once. That doesn't seem less difficult than searching for the city from the comfort of their home.

Keep in mind the privacy concerns of the HN are significantly higher than for normal people. It might not be much of an issue at all.

That said, one thing that is useful with being able to select a city is that it would allow me to browse my home city when I'm abroad, or look for people to play with while I'm traveling.

Tinder offers this as a premium feature.

IMO you’re losing more people due to the location requirement than you are gaining a bad rap from scammers/spammers. I just went through the exact experience of the above poster, I blanket deny loc tracking.

Then support both?

I don't think he's making it more difficult. How is automatic "more difficult" than manually typing in your city?

You're only keeping honest people out. It's trivial to spoof location on Android.

I think asking for location is perfectly sensible and the right thing to do. Track how many people say no, but if the opt out rate is too high, work on the wording to increase the rate before you allow manually entering a city.

What if I'm not in the location I care about? Musicians are famously people who are often on the road.

Great premium feature. Like on Tinder. Put location choice behind a paywall; keeps fake profiles out, too.

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