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There are thousands 4sq checkin tweets posted on Twitter. These tweets all contain a link to foursquare.com.

The link, for example, https://foursquare.com/donnyndra/checkin/4f60500ae4b02a8707007b93?s=ogf_jvcuoha1T0QUfIRVWGupvuc&ref=tw, has a checkin id and a signature.

I read API doc in 4sq.com, and found that an acting user is needed if I want to make Check-in Details request.

Does this means that I have to let the user who made the checkin auth my app for access? But I collected thousands checkin tweets just for research and can not let 4sq.com users auth.

Are there any solution to solve this problem? What I only have:

  • checkin id and signature
  • client_id and client_secret

Since I have links of checkins, should I parse the page behind the link to get what I want? Any better way to do it? Java language is used in my research project.

I really really need your kind help! Thanks in advance !

Tranq
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1 Answers1

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Since, as you said, getting users to authenticate you to access their accounts via the API is not an option, about the only thing you can do is to try and scrape the pages behind the links.

That said, I would be very surprised if doing so is not in violation of 4sq's Terms of Service. Also, by violating the Terms of Service of a 3rd party company, you may very well render your research invalid.

Your best bet would be to contact 4sq and see if they will let you use (or more likely, purchase) an anonymous subset of their data. This way, you are being very up-front with the company and you are also able to get permission to use their data.

cdeszaq
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  • Oh... I need to find another way to collect data that doesn't violate TOS, or just end my research project. Anyway, I really appreciate your answer. – Tranq Mar 21 '12 at 03:17
  • Hi Tranq, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8206849/how-to-crawl-foursquare-check-in-data for more details – akdotcom Mar 21 '12 at 14:22