14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook Places is a great opportunity for the social network to enter a very hot area with the great advantage of having a huge audience. But location services come with their own set of privacy issues, a matter Facebook is more than accustomed to.
With just a few months from the latest Facebook privacy fiasco, which, unsurprisingly, blew over just like all of the previous ones, the social network is launching a new feature that has the potential to set privacy advocates ablaze.
Location services are rather common place by now and Facebook doesn't really do enough to stand out from the crowd to warrant any new worries. But Facebook Places does come with some specific problems.
The first and biggest issue is that Facebook is not a location service, obviously. It's not Foursquare or Gowalla. Users know what to expect with a dedicated service, but with Facebook it's just another feature bolted on top and many users may not be very aware of what exactly they're sharing and with whom.
Granted, Facebook has done its best to ensure that it doesn't get another privacy fiasco. For one, the focus is not necessarily on sharing but on discovery, you check into a location to see who else is there.
By default, check-ins are only shared with friends. Users can restrict this further, specifying the ones who see the locations, or disable the feature altogether.
However, apart from your friends, you can also share your location with the people nearby with the "Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in" feature. This setting is enabled by default.
But the feature that most have issues with is the possibility for friends to check in others. When you check in at a location, you can tag the people with you and they will be checked in as well.
By default, friends will be able to check you in without your approval. However, the first time this happens you will be asked if you'll allow your friend to do this or not.
Even if you refuse the check in, you will still be tagged in the status updates on your friends' News Feed. You can remove any tags as well as delete any past check-ins at any point after the fact.