WordPress Hosti
HomeInternetFacebook Places: Share your location with friends

Facebook Places: Share your location with friends

Best Jumia Tech Week Deals

Facebook has launched its location-based service called Facebook Places. Facebook Places is a phone-based service that enable Facebook users share their location with friends. Places service is slowly being rolled out to users in the US. Users in other countries may have to wait awhile before Facebook Places is activated for their account.

Benefits of Facebook Places

Facebook Places will enable users to connect with each other at an entirely new level. Users can now see where their friends are as well as find friends around their location. Once a user selects the “check-in” button, their location will be visible to friends.

This feature enables users to discover when they are in the same place with their friends. Users can write comments/reviews about their location like restaurant, enabling users share their favourite spots with friends on Facebook.

Your friends can check you in to any location whether you are actually there or not, but you will receive a notification from Facebook each time this happens. Facebook also allows you to prevent friends from checking you in to locations.

Most Options on Facebook places are active by default. So whatever functionality you do not want, you have to opt-out yourself. You can either opt-out from Facebook Places completely or optimise the privacy settings to suite your privacy needs.

Facebook Places is available for the iPhone as well as Smartphones with support for geolocation and HTML 5. Facebook Places is currently available to Facebook users in the US.

Privacy Concerns

The launch of Facebook Places as raised more privacy concern about Facebook services. One flaw pointed out about Facebook Places is the fact that users are opted-in as a default. Hence, Facebook users who are not comfortable with sharing their location will have to opt-out.

- Advertisement -Fiverr Business

Security experts believe that it would have been more appropriate for the default setting to be inactive, so that users who are interested in the Facebook Places service will have to opt-in, and we agree with the experts on this one.

However, Facebook claims that your location will not be shared unless you check-in, but users should have been given the chance to choose whether they want the service or not.

The major concern for Facebook users is the possibility of their location falling in the wrong hands. Stalking is a common occurrence on Facebook; location information means that the stalker will know where you are currently.

Not only that, he will also know where you have been e.g. where you shop, the club you go to, etc, information that easily enable him create a more detailed profile about you than have previously been possible.

- Advertisement -AliExpress Anniversary Sales

However it is not only stalkers that you should worry about, it is about your location falling into wrong hands. Imagine burglars using your location on Facebook Places to know that you are out of town and using the opportunity to rob your house while you are away. Note that Facebook applications can also access your location if you allow them to.

So Facebook Places has a number of benefits, but there are a lot of privacy concerns some of which may simply be hot air, but a number of them are real. Hence you need to think carefully before leaving your Facebook privacy settings untouched. Here is an article about customising your Facebook settings for Facebook Places.

Read announcement of Facebook Places at the Facebook blog.

Paschal Okafor is NaijaTechGuide Team Lead. The article Facebook Places: Share your location with friends was written by Paschal Okafor. The article was last modified: November 20th, 2023
AliExpress 11 11 Sales
NaijaTechGuide may receive financial compensation for products/services purchased through affiliate links on this site. See full Affiliate Disclosure Here
Paschal Okafor
Paschal Okafor
Paschal Okafor is the founder of NaijaTechGuide. A Graduate of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Paschal is passionate about Technology and since 2006 has written over 4000 articles covering Mobile Devices, Consumer Electronics, Digital Marketing, Mobile Apps, and Online Services. Over the past 16 years, he has managed to turn a blog that started life on a Google Blogger subdomain into the Largest Technology Blog in Nigeria and quite possibly the largest in Africa. Paschal has been Building, Analyzing, and Maintaining Websites for over 17 years and also shares his wealth of knowledge and experience about building and managing websites on NaijaTechGuide.

Recommended Read on NaijaTechGuide

Best Marketing Automation Software 2024

You need the best marketing automation software to scale your business fast and convert...

Best Content Marketing Tools for 2024

As a content marketer, you have a lot of tasks to accomplish. You need...

Best VPN Services Providers for 2024

The internet is one of the greatest achievements of humanity, but it is also...

Best 20KVA Generators to Buy in 2024

Generator sets, as an alternate source of power supply, come in their different sizes...

Best Laptops for Students 2024: 11 Top Picks to Choose From

So, you are a student who is looking to get the best laptop they...

Cheap Android Phones 2024 – Price, Specs, and Best Deals

Android phones are the most popular smartphone category. The popularity of Android phones are...

Best Android Phones 2024 – Price, Specs, and Best Deals

New Android Phones are launched into the market every week. This means that if...

Best Web Hosting Services for Building Websites in 2024

A good and reliable web hosting service will make a big difference for your...
Fiverr Business

More like this

SEO Strategies for Agribusiness: Increasing Organic Reach for Fruit Sellers

Are you a fruit seller looking to expand your market reach and increase sales? In...

The Significance of Affiliate Marketing in the Online Gambling Industry and its Operational Mechanism

The online gambling industry, a dynamic and rapidly evolving sector, has witnessed exponential growth...

Building a Resilient Database System for Financial Applications

In  general  terms,  resilience  is  the  ability  to  withstand  adversity  and  bounce  back  from ...