PleaseRobMe site down after losing Twitter

KINGSTON, N.Y., Feb. 18 (UPI) -- PleaseRobMe, a Dutch Web site seeking to inform people of the dangers of sharing information in forums such as Twitter and Foursquare, was down late Thursday.

United Press International found an Internal Server Error message for several hours when it tried to access the site.

The apparent shutdown followed PleaseRobMe's Twitter account being suspended earlier in the day for "suspicious activity."

PleaseRobMe apparently used tools to send automated tweets advising other Twitter users of how their information could be exploited, PC Magazine reported.

The site's developers told BBC News PleaseRobMe was designed not to help burglars, but to make a point about the dangers of sharing precise location information on the Internet.

"The point we're getting at is that not long ago it was questionable to share your full name on the Internet," co-developer Boy Van Amstel said. "We've gone past that point by 1,000 miles," where people report their locations throughout the day.

The site scrutinized players of online game Foursquare, which is based on a person's location in the real world. It also extracted information from players who chose to post their whereabouts onto Twitter.

It then reformatted the information to read like an alert to a would-be burglar, saying a user "left home and checked in 12 minutes ago," followed by the user's update: "I'm at San Francisco International Airport."