Pass on Facebook Places

Submitted by warriorPoet on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 22:26

Facebook recently launched "Facebook Places". Depending on your settings any "friend" can find out where you are when you log in or comment. This is supposed to allow you to 'see' people who are nearby.

In addition, you or ANY friend can TAG you at an event and enayone who is checked in nearby among your "friends" can see your position highlighted

It gives the actual address & map location of where you are as you use Facebook. These days you can never really know who your "friends" are.

This is not just an invasion of privacy but can have severe concequences
to you personally, especially if you add "friends" you dont really know.

To remove this go to top right menu "Account", then choose "Account settings",  click "Notifications", scroll down to "Places" and uncheck the 2 boxes 'Tags me at a Place'  & 'Comments on my visits to Places' THEN click 'Save Changes'.

Now go back to the menu "Account", then choose "Privacy Settings", click "Customise settings" (it will be in blue). Scroll down to the section "Things I share" Unclick ENABLE in 'Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in... Visible to friends and people checked in nearby'

Continue scrolling down to the next section "Things others share" and select DISABLED to the label 'Friends can check me in to Places'

Dont want someone knowing more or less EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE when you are posting... or even have your "friends" tagging where you are!

That sets a dangerous leak of information, especially for you younger ones and females...You all be careful now and thanks for the heads up Cindy PS The DEFAULT settings is that this is enabled.

wP

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Comments

Submitted by Edmund Gall on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 09:29.

Thanks, wP, but what you've written isn't entirely true.  I strongly advise you, and your readers, to read the facebook Help pages regarding Places before spreading any warnings they get from friends regarding Places privacy: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1080

There are three ways for facebook to know where you are.  The first is when you manually check-in via the facebook Places application on a suitably enabled phone.  The second is if any of your facebook friends check-in to Places and also check you into that place.  The third is if any facebook friends choose to include you in their own Places story via tagging (i.e. tag you in their Places posts without checking you in).  You can control all of these.

facebook Places does NOT automatically check you into a place, nor does it give 'the actual address & map location of where you are as you use Facebook' - there is no running, real-time tracking of your location if you have a GPS-enabled phone.  You have control over the check-in process: if you don't check-in (by clicking on either a Check-in or Share Location button), facebook remains clueless about your whereabouts.

There are three new privacy settings related to this app.  The first is entitled Places I check in to - which controls who can see the places you've checked into (if you use the Places app on your phone, then this will apply to you).  You can set this to:

  • Everyone: Every facebook account would be able to see you've checked in
  • Friends and networks: All of your facebook friends and any member of any facebook network you joined
  • Friends of friends: All of your facebook friends and all of their facebook friends
  • Friends only: All of your facebook friends only
  • Customise: - you can create a customised list of your facebook friends that would be able to view the places you've checked into. For example, you can create a list of your close family and friends.

The second privacy setting is Include me in "People here now" after I check in, which controls whether your facebook friends can tag you in their own Places stories (and so say where you've been).  As you've written, this is a tick-box: tick to enable it and untick to disable it.

The third is entitled Friends can check me in to places.  This can be set to either Enabled or Disabled, and controls whether any of your facebook friends can check you into a place on their own phone.  Even if friends tag you in their facebook Places stories, you can remove your tag (just like you can remove any tags to you placed by your friends in their facebook Photos).

Contrary to what your source told you, the default settings for these depends on what your Master Privacy controls are set to.  However, your advice to the younger folk to review their facebook privacy settings is a very good one; in fact, it's good advice for adults too.  Since I'd already changed a number of my controls to restrict my face book friends' access rights to my data, by default facebook set my first privacy setting to Friends only, my second was disabled (unticked) and my third was unset (which is practically Disabled).  Further, the privacy settings are more restrictive by default for persons under 18: they will only be able to share their location with at most their facebook friends (not friends of friends, networks or everyone).

Now, you also advise that folks disable the Places-related notifications: why should they do that?  The two checkboxes you refer to in your post above (Tags me at a Place and Comments on my visits to Places) only control how *you* are *notified* of Places-related messages.  So if you untick those, all you're really doing is preventing yourself from being notified by e-mail that someone else has tagged you in their Places story or commented on one of your own Places stories.  I don't think you would really want to untick those: if you're concerned about folks doing things without your approval, why would you choose NOT to be notified?

So what you're passing on is a message that actually reduces your own awareness of when others state where you are without your input.  Security-related controls are under the Privacy Settings, not Account (Notifications) Settings.

facebook shares the responsibility for security with their users.  Ultimately, users have to ensure their own security.  Users shouldn't blame facebook if they don't take it upon themselves to learn how it works, what info it publishes about them, and what controls they have over that info.  facebook didn't put the info out there - they don't know you.  You and/or your friends have control over what gets published: by controlling what details you put on facebook in the first place, and through facebook's privacy settings (including the privacy settings for your status update messages).

facebook was created to allow friends to interact online.  However, some folks use it to network or to meet new people, so they often accept facebook friend invitations from people who they don't really trust (like they do with trusted friends outside of facebook).  These are the folks - especially those who accept friend requests from people they never met physically - who should adjust the controls over what their facebook friends can see.  If they don't do this, then they'll have no grounds to complain that facebook is putting too much info about them out there.