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Despite complaints from some consumer advocates about the privacy measures in Facebook Places, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called privacy controls for the location-based service a “substantial improvement” over those of earlier products.
That praise from the EFF comes with the caveat that Facebook Places settings are only good if users understand them and judiciously use them.
Facebook launched its Places location-based service Aug. 18. The service lets users “check in” to a location via their smartphone to share their locations with Facebook friends.
Places will tell those users if their friends are nearby in case the parties want to meet up. Users may also tag friends who are with them. Facebook Places rivals check-in services from Foursquare and Gowalla. TechCrunch runs down the controls here.
The EFF is highly sensitive to location-based Web services, having tussled with Google over its Latitude friend-finding service to make sure that it protects user privacy.
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