Facebook’s privacy settings enable users to customize who sees where you are.
(Credit: Facebook)

In designing its new Places geolocation service, Facebook seems to have learned from its past privacy blunders. The new service has multiple layers of privacy control, but as with other aspects of Facebook privacy, users need to put some thought about whether and how they want to disclose their location. Facebook has also created an extra level of privacy for its under-18 users, prohibiting them from displaying their location to anyone other than their friends.

The first thing to know about Places is that it’s not fully automatic. You have to “check in” or be tagged at a location for Facebook to display where you are. Because location is a particularly sensitive issue, Facebook, by default, shows only your location to people designated as friends, even if you have more open privacy settings for posts or other types of information.

Check-in vs. tagging
The difference between being checked-in and being tagged can be confusing. 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 set