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Foursquare Now Keeps Your Home Off The Grid

If you’re a user of Foursquare, it’s highly likely that you’ve created an entry for your home on the service’s network. I mean, most people are at their home more than they are...
Foursquare Now Keeps Your Home Off The Grid
Written by Josh Wolford
  • If you’re a user of Foursquare, it’s highly likely that you’ve created an entry for your home on the service’s network. I mean, most people are at their home more than they are at any other location, and if you love to check-in, you probably want to check in at your house.

    But some users might worry about listing their personal residence on a public service.

    Foursquare is hoping to alleviate any trepidations that might come with listing your private address by rolling out new privacy features for Homes.

    Currently, venues marked “Home” are treated like any other venue – as in they are visible to everyone using the app. Now, Foursquare is making it so that the specific addresses of venues tagged “Home” are only visible to your friends.

    To make sure your home venue is private to you and your friends, choose Home as the venue’s primary category. Doing this will ensure that only you and your friends can see the address on the venue page; everyone else sees a zoomed out map with no map pin (rather than the real location). If a Mayorship, badge unlock, or check-in is shared to Twitter or Facebook, the venue URL will include a map without a specific location for everyone.

    For instance, my home as seen by my friends (note the map pin and actual address on the left) –

    And this is my home as seen by everyone else –

    “Since this is a home, the exact location is not shared here. This map is of the approximate area.”

    Users will be able to go in and edit the settings of their “Home” venue, including making sure that it is set to private and categorizing their home as something else (say a speakeasy?). Users will also be able to remove their home from the Foursquare network entirely.

    The feature will roll out over the next few days.

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