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This seems like a common sense bad move to me, but Facebook has rolled out Facebook Places, their new geo-location service that lets you check in to specific GPS-like locations, and even lets your friends check you in.

So what is the problem? It is well-known that burglars use Facebook and Twitter to determine when a house is empty and when people are away on vacation or just out at the store. But with Facebook Places, users will be able to "check-in" with their mobile phones to Facebook, and even your Facebook friends will be able to check you in. So this makes it that much easier for people in your local area to determine when it is safe to break in, because now they are not just depending on your word in a Tweet that you went to the store, they really know you are there. Facebook Places also assists stalkers to find their stalkees, and helps with "accidental run-ins" at the store, theaters, restaurant and other places that is likely unwanted by the stalkee.

What additional service does Facebook Places add anyway? If I want to meet up with any of my friends, I will make plans with them. Sometimes you just want to go and eat with one other person or by yourself, and you don't want other dropping in.

If you want to disable Facebook Places, go to your Privacy Settings under Account. Disable "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in". Scroll down to "Things others share", and disable "Friends can check me in to Places". If you do both of these, you will not be included in Facebook Places, and others will not be able to tag you to areas. I think it is quite a safety issue to have it turned on, considering that almost everyone has Facebook friends that they don't really know that well.

I read about this as soon as it came out, and disabled it right off the bat on both my page and my wifes page. Its bogus that this is being allowed, when they state they are so concerned about people's privacy...

Such a poor idea, if i want people to join me then i use the ancient art of asking nicely.

wow thanks for the warning. Some moron at Facebook "Hey I got a idea dur de dur"

Foursquare too.

Thanks for the info, Jack!

Noctrine wrote:Foursquare too.

I kept hearing about Foursquare and never knew much about it. I believe it only has about 500k users, which makes it a much less fertile target for burglars. However, I think the same geo-social networking features could be disasterous in Facebook due to the sheer number of people who are on it, and the infuriating fact that Facebook Places is turned on by default!

Also, you might want to be wary when they reset the privacy settings. Facebook is known to occasionally (every month or two) reset privacy settings and so features like that get turned on again by default.

ita Stet.

PaxBritannia wrote:Also, you might want to be wary when they reset the privacy settings. Facebook is known to occasionally (every month or two) reset privacy settings and so features like that get turned on again by default.

ita Stet.

Are you serious? That should be illegal! That hasn't happened to me before, but I have only been using Facebook for about 3 months or so. I will keep an eye on it!

PaxBritannia wrote:Also, you might want to be wary when they reset the privacy settings. Facebook is known to occasionally (every month or two) reset privacy settings and so features like that get turned on again by default.

ita Stet.

I been using Facebook over a year now, and that hasn't happened to me yet either, but will keep a close eye on it! Thanks for that tip!