Facebook Places gets a new location-based networking program to start working with. This should be great for the social site. It is easy to see where your friends are at and know which friends are the closest with Facebook Places for those who have a smartphone that uses GPS. Facebook Places also lets users tag friends who are with them. Locations that the user may want are shown on Places. Broadcasting a user’s location has created an additional layer within the Facebook privacy issues debate. Advertising is easy with Facebook Places. Businesses could be more likely to advertise with it. Burglars would do well with it also. They could catch individuals more very easily. Personal details is vulnerable by default, but Places could be disabled in Facebook privacy settings.
Better advertising with Facebook Places
Foursquare and Gowalla are networking sites that Facebook Places have depending itself off. Users can check in on there so their location could be shown to their friends. The New York Times reports that Michael Sharon, works for Places, says that Places wants to get a minimum of 500 million Facebook users to use this program. The Times found out that Facebook wants to work with small businesses for the Places program. Google can be beat out if Places can work with many companies like this. Analysts say both companies covet the potential market for mobile advertising and search. Identity and behavior is studied this way. Corporations will benefit when knowing what human behavior is turning into.
Facebook Places has issues with privacy
Sam Diaz from ZDNet says that it is really just weird that Facebook would give the location of users with Places to help with advertising. Flagging things may be the only way to get things removed, even if somebody else has put that info in for you. Tagging friends with you is one more concern that he has. It would suck if your friend tagged you someplace you weren’t designed to be. However, permission to be tagged by friends could be allowed or denied in Facebook privacy settings. Diaz also was worried that burglars would look to see “who’s not home” on Facebook Places and use that.
Disable Facebook Places
For Facebook users who prefer to keep their location private, or stop their friends from posting it, Lifehacker provides instructions. Places can only be changed if you change privacy settings. You will have to get on your Facebook account. Sadly, by default, your Facebook Places setting is already picked. It is set as allow locations. The default also lets people know a user is at a particular location via the location’s Facebook page or in a search for individuals near the location. The user might not even know some of the individuals checking where they’re since friends of friends are allowed to see them with this default privacy setting for Facebook.
Additional reading
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/19/technology/19facebook.html?ref=technology
ZDNet
zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-launches-places-geo-location-service-thats-both-cool-and-creepy/38203
Lifehacker
lifehacker.com/5616395/how-to-disable-facebook-places
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