Checking into the safety of Facebook Places

Facebook just launched "Facebook Places." Should I be worried about my teen using it?

Facebook Places is a geolocation service, which means users can share where they are in real time with other users posting from mobile devices. A person can get to Places through an Apple iPhone, an iPod Touch or other smart phone or a computer.

When a user "checks in" at a location, the information is sent to their Facebook friends. If your child has friends he doesn't know well, this might not be wise. However, your child can create a limited "sublist" of friends privileged to know his location.

If your child was honest when signing up for Facebook and admitted being younger than 18, safeguards limit his information to his friends only. For adults, check-in information is distributed to any other Facebook user checked in at the same location, friend or not. Both adults and minors also can check in for another Facebook user, whether the user is at the location or not. With minors, that information goes only to the minor's friends.

"The best way to protect your children is to tell them to go into their privacy settings," says Larry Magid, who writes a "Safe and Secure" blog for CNET.com, is co-director of nonprofit Web safety organization connectsafely.org and sits on the Facebook Safety Advisory Board. "Disable the ability for friends to check them in, and limit who can see them checked in to a 'subset' of friends or 'only me.' " "Only me" essentially turns Places off.