How Near works

There are no profiles

A note attaches to a venue. There is no account, no username, no follower list and no way to see everything one person wrote. This is not an omission we intend to fix later: almost every way a location app becomes unpleasant runs through a persistent identity someone can follow, target or impersonate. Not having one removes those problems rather than moderating them.

There are no messages

You cannot contact another person through Near. The other half of harassment in local apps is the private channel; there isn’t one.

Notes go on public places only

A note has to resolve to a real venue — a pub, a park, a shop. Addresses that resolve to a house are refused. A board that accepts posts about where somebody lives is a harassment tool with a map on it.

Notes expire after two weeks

Most of what is worth saying about a place has a short life. “Kitchen shut at nine” and “terrace is open again” are useful now and misleading in a year, so the board forgets rather than accumulating.

Reporting, and why one angry person cannot bury a note

Anyone can report a note. Reports from enough different people hide it pending review; repeated reports from the same device count once. Otherwise the report button becomes a delete button for whoever presses it hardest.

You can always delete your own notes, from the device that wrote them.

Your location is not stored

Your position is used to run the lookup and then discarded. It is not logged against you, not kept, and not sold. There is nothing to sell, because there is no account to attach it to.

What the notes are, and are not

They are written by visitors and are their own opinions. We do not verify them. Place names and locations come from OpenStreetMap contributors under ODbL; the note text does not.