Out to find girls? Now there is an app for that too

ISTANBUL

Screen capture from the app website.

A Russian company has come under fire after launching a new smartphone application that allows users to find female users in nearby locations, the Wall Street Journal reported.
 
The app, titled “Girls Around Me,” "scans your surroundings and helps you find out where girls or guys are hanging out," the promo website states. Users can also “see the ration of girls and guys in different places.”
 
"In the mood for love, or just a one-night stand?" the website asks. "Girls Around Me puts you in control."
 
But social network Foursquare, which allows users to tag their locations on a map, announced last week that it would no longer provide any service to the controversial app due to "inappropriate overview of a series of locations."
 
“Girls Around Me” is designed to tap into Foursquare data, then match users profiles and photos and finally inform about the locations of nearby female users. The app was downloaded by more than 70,000 people, Wall Street Journal reported.
 
i-Free, the company behind the app, defended the product, saying it "was designed to make geo-social exploration of popular venues easy and visual" and that it "does not allow anonymous usage."
 
The app does not come up with any more information than is already shown by Facebook or Foursquare, i-Free said.
 
"We are absolutely convinced that it is good and important to educate the users to take care of their privacy and what they share publicly. But we believe it is unethical to pick a scapegoat to talk about the privacy concerns," the company said.