Foursquare uploads your contacts as well – so what ?

While Pathgate is still creating heated emotions here and there, Mike Arrington, whose CrunchFund is an investor in Path, published a post on his personal blog in which he points out that Foursquare is also uploading your contact data when you create a Foursquare account. Again, normal best practice.

Foursquare uploads your contacts - so what ?

Arrington however goes overboard – probably because he fears that Path will become the scapegoat – when he says that Apple is the culprit of it all. According to Arrington Apple should not have allowed this in the first place. But really Mike, if someone gives you a shotgun, does it mean you have to shoot someone? No. Apple isn’t at fault and nor are the developers because in the best interest of users contact uploads should continue to exist to create less friction when using an app.

All in all this ‘Pathgate’ gets really ridiculous, especially because many of the blog posts are clearly written by people who either never have developed an app or never even wondered how it’s possible that you can share so many things from inside an app without going to the trouble of importing, sorting out etc.

Don’t use social layered apps if you don’t want to use it for what it’s been built for in the first place: sharing (so the app can get popular as well).