Category: Issues

A few days ago I blogged about how I was able to check my wife into a local liquor store using Facebook Places without her permission, despite Facebook's insistence that "No one can be checked in to a location without their explicit permission". This check-in has remained visible in my news feed, and depending on my privacy settings, may be viewable by any logged in Facebook user. Presumably there also is a database at Facebook that contains a record of my checking-in my wife into this location. Again, all without my wife's explicit consent to participating in this new "feature". Now, four days later, my wife had a chance to react to the notification she received from Facebook regarding my tagging her, and I thought I'd share a few more reactions to her attempt to opt-out of Places altogether.

Facebook has finally launched its location-based service: Places. Places allows Facebook users to "check in" wherever they are using a mobile device, and let's their friends know where they are at the moment. Facebook has tried to do a better job addressing privacy with Places compared to previous launches of new "features". Particularly, Facebook brags that "no location information is associated with a person unless he or she explicitly chooses to become part of location sharing. No one can be checked in to a location without their explicit permission." But as I've played around with the service, I've uncovered a problem with Facebook's assertion that "no one can be checked in to a location without their explicit permission."