How To DISABLE Facebook Places

Facebook recently launched a location-based service called Places, which lets users update their location in real time and share their social activities with fellow Facebookers.

Facebook Places works only on iPhone's Facebook app and touch website, and it is similar to existing geolocation services like Foursquare and Gowilla, both of which have raised privacy issues among users.

The Facebook Places security options are set to "Friends Only" by default, but you can opt out of the service altogether. To do so follow these simple instructions:

1. Go to your Facebook account's "Privacy Settings."
2. Click "Customize settings" in the "Sharing on Facebook" section.
3. Under "Things I share" click the option box next to "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in." You have now disabled this feature.

The image below is what your settings should look like once you have completed these steps.

Another Places feature may allow friends to share your location -- even if you are not currently there and even if you have already disabled self-check-in. Friends using Places can check you in or "tag" you at a certain place. Larry Magid, writing for CNET, explains the distinction between a "check-in" and a "tag":

If you're checked-in by yourself or by a friend, your presence at the location is visible to anyone that either you or your friend allows, based on your friend's and your privacy settings. Your name will show up on the location's Places page, if there is one, so everyone at the location can see that you're there. If you are tagged by a friend, your presence at the location is seen by your friends or whoever they allow to see their posts, subject to their (not your) privacy settings.

You must approve a check-in request, but you are only given two options: "Yes" and "Not Now." The American Civil Liberties Union alreted ReadWriteWeb that a simple "No" option does not exist.

Again, there is an easy way to disable this feature:

1. Go to your Facebook account's "Privacy Settings."
2. Click "Customize settings" in the "Sharing on Facebook" section.
3. Under "Things others share," locate the option "Friends can check me into Places."
4. Select "Disable" from the list of options. You have now disabled this feature.

The image below is what your settings should look like once you have completed these steps.

Special restrictions apply to Facebook users who are under 18. To read our complete guide to Facebook Places, click here.

Comments

[Maryelens]

12:01 AM on 09/14/2010

Facebook continues to amaze me-why, oh why would anyone want the kind of Internet surveillance they are offering as a default feature? There is something awfully wrong with the herd mentality of giving up privacy for self important announcements of location awareness for view by ANYONE - even the bad guys! I just can't believe that the masses are aware of the privacy they're giving away.

[brady51h]

02:53 AM on 08/24/2010

I found my answer. I selected myself off of Facebook.

[Jim8]

02:37 AM on 08/23/2010

I refuse to belong to a social network, and it seems to be a good decision.

If I were a burglar I'd have one heck of a tool to tell me when someone won't be home.

[this is jason]

06:20 AM on 08/23/2010

you and me both, brother!
i feel like a free man without it!

[JerkMonster86]

08:10 AM on 08/23/2010

Huffpost is a Social Network of sorts.

[breakingpoint]

01:58 AM on 08/23/2010

3. Under "Things I share" click the option box next to "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in." You have now disabled this feature.

That's not completely correct or clear - If you tick the box it ENABLES that feature.

[BenjaminPhillips]

02:29 AM on 08/23/2010

Technically it IS correct. The box is checked by default. By "ticking" it you are in fact de-selecting it and therefore disabling the feature!!

[Parvaneh Ferhad]

06:31 AM on 08/23/2010

Can you tick what's already ticked? I thought the right term - and the almost universally used one - was 'untick'.

[breakingpoint]

07:34 AM on 08/23/2010

yeah, I just thought it needed to be clear cause generally boxes are unticked and this box was ticked and I wasn't sure if it was that way or if I ticked it by mistake

I think companies should be required to have everything off and allow the user to turn features on. Not unlike a survey when you log in.

But companies too often have an interesting way of turning a phrase to their advantage.

There's so much about facebook I hate, but on occasion I need to view a directed link and find in order to read the page I have to be logged in.

Unless you're selling something, I think it's foolish to give any information to facebook.

[mmike1969]

12:23 AM on 08/23/2010

Thanks!

[professor]

11:46 PM on 08/22/2010

I already waste too much time on the internet. Sadly, I may have to do the whole nine yards, Facebook, I-tunes, MySpace, whatever else dumb new thing they come up with (in the past, when everything was more advanced, they invented, like, uh, refrigerators and cars and things--now they invent apps), for professional reasons. I keep postponing the inevitable.

And anyhow, re Places, wait until you are wanted by the police. They won't even have to wait long enough to want you. They'll already have you. O, yeah, that's right. You will never be wanted by the police. You are a law-abiding citizen. The police never arrest law-abiding citizens. (I don't mean all, or even most "you's" hereon. It's just that the second person makes it all so much more, I don't know, less that zero or something.)

I have a dream. Sighting a beautiful woman who is not staring into her phone.

I have another dream. Living in a utopia where people shower abuse on people who wear telephones clipped to their ears.

[TheRevV]

11:26 AM on 08/23/2010

Wow... thanks for that warning. I'm not on Facebook, but my wife is. She does her best to keep personal info off Facebook, but that doesn't stop andy careless friend of hers. I wish she'd quit the thing entirely.
The police issue is darn scary.

I have to disagree with the phone clip on the grounds it's darn funny when people wearing them don't realize at first glance they come across as insane people babbling to themselves until one notices the phones clipped to their ears. Annoying yes, but still funny.
I kinda want to get a non-working ear phone so I can say strange and outlandish things and get away with it while walking down the street. Just because.

[TheRevV]

11:26 AM on 08/23/2010

"any" not "andy"

[dpiyjrtmfr]

10:42 PM on 08/22/2010

I jumped on the Facebook bandwagon early. I decided to opt out. I have been Facebook free for almost a year now. It feels good!

[DharmaRecruit]

08:53 PM on 08/22/2010

Great, now how do I disable all the different ways HP tries to shove Facebook down my throat?

[LillyKelder]

10:09 PM on 08/22/2010

adblock?

[PDXTransplant]

08:48 PM on 08/22/2010

I just deactivated my account today and my emails went down to just a few. Awwwwww. It feels so good.

[YeahDonkey]

08:31 PM on 08/22/2010

F*** Facebook in the face

[gratefulred]

07:52 PM on 08/22/2010

Just as an FYI, it also seems like every time you make a comment on anyone else's status or wall, this update automatically goes out to EVERYONE in your friends list in their FB feed. yes, you can choose who you want to see your status updates, but not who you want to see your friends' status updates and your comments on them.... as even people who they don't know, but you do now see their wall posts. Ins ane.

[Behind the Tweed Curtain]

08:42 PM on 08/22/2010

Hi red - good to see you. I found out the hard way that comments to a friend's wall could be seen by everyone. It was very embarassing. Since then I have used every privacy option there is and I only say things that won't come back to bite me.

[mcmingus]

07:43 PM on 08/22/2010

FACEBOOK blows...

[Technowitch]

07:42 PM on 08/22/2010

It's really ticking me off, how every time the geniuses at Facebook come up with some new way to compromise my privacy, they invariably introduce it TURNED ON by default.

I mean, holy crap -- other people can "check me in" in Places?

I need to think again about whether I really want to continue having an account over there...

[curiousasheck]

03:37 PM on 08/22/2010

Have any of these kids who think the world is run by "kindly fun loving bunny rabbits" considered just who all these so called instant friends they never checked out really are?

Huh? Check out someone what you mean man? Making friends is easy man you don't need to check anyone out! You just click the button and you got friends it's that easy man!

[nonamejustgame]

08:44 PM on 08/22/2010

My same sentiments.....some people have 995 friends and only know 25 of them...go figure.

[Aerows]

02:04 PM on 08/22/2010

The easiest way is not to register on facebook to begin with. It's asking for identity theft and privacy concerns.

[DeSwiss]

07:33 PM on 08/22/2010

Exactly.