Rory Cellan-Jones reports:
It was meant to be a neighbourly get-together – but the takeover of the UK’s Streetlife website by America’s Nextdoor has left many British users deeply unhappy with the new arrangements.
It has also revealed a transatlantic cultural chasm in attitudes to privacy.
Nextdoor describes itself as a private social network, but one where people give their real names and addresses.
That’s rather different from Streetlife, where people are generally John from Acton, rather than John Smith from 225 Acacia Gardens.
Shock
On Monday, Streetlife members received an email announcing the deal and inviting them to transfer to Nextdoor.
It was made clear that Streetlife would be shutting down as a social network in a fortnight, so there was not much incentive to stay.
But when they clicked on the big button in the email enabling the move to Nextdoor, some users – indeed rather a lot if my Twitter messages are anything to go by – were horrified.
Seeing a directory of the full names and addresses of people in their new Nextdoor neighbourhoods was a shock.
It sounds like it was not made clear to Streetlife that if they moved over, their addresses and full names would be visible to everyone as the default. And for those who had privacy concerns, this was a Very Big Deal, as Cellan-Jones reports.
Read more on BBC.