Category Archives: Foursquare

Honey I’m home! – Using Facebook Places and Foursquare at home.

I am here, there and everywhere.

When I first started Foursquare many years ago, I was checking in everywhere.

I was possibly Foursquare’s best user for the bayside and south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. I was adding everything, from the service station I filled up at to the cafe I grabbed a coffee at. What the hey, I’ll throw every public place in I can.

One day I had a seemingly brilliant idea to add my own home to Foursquare. Another check in, brilliant!

My digital diva tech savvy sister called shortly after and referred me to this link: Please Rob Me

It highlights the following issue with Foursquare, Facebook Places and others such as GoWalla: When you add your house, you are most likely adding its exact location. When you check in, you broadcast out to the web you are home, we you check in elsewhere, you broadcast out to the web that you are NOT home. Hey everyone, I’m not home, please rob me.

Yes, it’s a bit dramatic, it is entirely possible.

There are two solutions to retaining some “check in” privacy:

Move your “home” to a different location. I moved mine to an intersection up the road. (I’ve only been able to do this on Foursquare. Let me know how for Facebook Places)
Don’t add your home at all.
Check your Facebook Privacy settings. With Facebook Places, others can check you into a location without them asking your permission. This is under “Friends can check me into places”. This feature can be disabled.
Facebook places aggregates those who have checked-in into a “People here now” for that location. This feature can be disabled.

There also seems to be a misconception out there, judging by comments on other blogs about Foursquare and Facebook Places that these apps track your every move. This is not the case. In the case of Foursquare, it will only check you into places you tell the app to check you in to.

Always be mindful of what location-based data you are broadcasting out there.

In the end always remember one thing: If you want information kept private, don’t put it on the Internet.