Location is the most useful and most sensitive input we handle. If you’re standing on the corner of 7th and Bleecker, we can recommend a wine bar three blocks away that perfectly matches your mood. That’s powerful.
It’s also a responsibility.
Here’s how we handle it:
When you take the Moodap quiz, one of the questions asks about location. You can type a neighborhood, pick from the map, or let the browser detect your location. If you choose auto-detect, we use the browser’s geolocation API to get your coordinates.
Those coordinates do one thing: they tell us which neighborhood you’re in and how far you are from potential matches. That’s it.
We don’t store your location. Not in a database. Not in analytics. Not in cookies. The coordinates are used in real-time for the matching calculation and then discarded. If you close the tab, your location is gone. We literally cannot tell you where you were last Tuesday because we don’t know.
We made this decision early and it’s non-negotiable. Location data is the most valuable (and most abused) data type in tech. Companies build entire businesses selling it. We won’t be one of them.
Walking distance in Manhattan is everything.
Unlike other cities, New Yorkers walk. A lot. The difference between a venue that’s 3 blocks away and one that’s 30 blocks away is the difference between "let’s go" and "eh, maybe next time." We weight results by walkability — closer venues get a proximity boost.
But we don’t make it absolute. If you’re in Midtown and the absolute best match for your mood is a bar in the Lower East Side, we’ll tell you. We’ll just also tell you there’s a great option 4 blocks away in case you don’t feel like traveling.
The auto-detect works differently inside vs. outside. Indoors, browser geolocation relies on Wi-Fi triangulation, which can be off by a block or two. Outdoors with GPS, it’s accurate to about 10 meters. For our purposes, either is fine. We’re mapping to neighborhoods, not buildings.
One technical challenge: Manhattan has floors. Someone on a rooftop bar in Flatiron and someone in the basement speakeasy below them have the same coordinates but completely different contexts. We handle this through the quiz questions, not the GPS. Your mood tells us more than your altitude.
If you choose not to share location, that’s completely fine. You just pick your neighborhood manually and the matching works the same way. No location, no problem. We’ll still find your perfect spot.
Your location is your business. We just borrow it for 25 seconds to help you figure out where to go.
— The Moodap™ Team