Foursquare Makes Home Addresses Private

With GPS sensors built into everything and more and more services, websites and apps taking advantage of location data, a big number of innovative, or at least fun, services have surfaced. But with location data so easily attainable comes a greater need for privacy precautions.

A lot of people are sensitive about their privacy and their homes are probably on top of the list. Foursquare has now made a small, but interesting change enabling users to make their home location private even if they check into it.

Foursquare quietly rolled out the feature last week, enabling users to better manage their privacy when it comes to their home address.

Of course, not too many people are going to check into their homes, but some want to. What's more, other's may have created a venue at your home address.

This is why Foursquare is now enabling users to set "home" as a venue category for locations. This simple change makes quite a difference.

Setting a venue as a "home" makes its address visible to only you and your friends. Everyone else will only see a map of the area with no pin to point to the exact location.

"If a Mayorship, badge unlock, or check-in is shared to Twitter or Facebook, the venue URL will include a map without a specific location for everyone," Foursquare also explained.

"Once you’ve created your home as a venue and categorized it as Home, you’ll also have the option to edit or delete it by going to its venue page at foursquare.com and clicking 'Edit Venue'," it said.

If someone else has created a venue at your home address, you can take steps to prevent the location from showing up publicly. You have to click on the "Report a problem" link at the venue's page and select the "Venue is my home" option.

You then have the option of either asking for the location to be made private, to be removed from Foursquare altogether or to categorize the venue as a home if it's not already.