No, I personally would not use sites like Foursquare and Google Places. I believe I’m not so obnoxious as to think that where I am deserves the attention of my friends’ Facebook news feeds. But what I equally dislike are those who treat every similar social-networking feature as an assault on the privacy of vulnerable and helpless Americans (“but the scary Internet is going to reveal your information for all to see!”). Predictably, as soon as Facebook announced their plans for a similar Places feature, they cried out “PRIVACY WARNING” (I’m not kidding).

Obviously, I’m not saying you should totally disregard privacy settings, as they can come in handy when avoiding stalkers, your boss, and such unwanted figures. What I am saying is how often privacy-rights groups assume we don’t have a functioning brain when it comes to online self-protection.

This should be obvious to social networking users, but sadly isn’t: yes, you’re ultimately responsible for what gets posted on there. Yes, it’s your job to monitor your own dang profile page. Yes, others can see what you post on there- if they really want to, they’ll find a way.

Therefore, please have some self-restraint with your online activity. Take the time to ask your friends to untag or delete those pictures of you at that one party going crazy. Don’t tweet your home address out to the public, especially if it’s part of a post saying you’re going on a two-week vacation. Maybe you can even make the grand sacrifice of removing “drinking beer” as one of your listed hobbies. If this sounds like stifling of free speech to you, well, we do it everyday in face-to-face interactions. We constantly choose what to and what not to reveal about ourselves to others. All I’m asking is to apply those same rules to your online social life.

So what about Facebook Places? What if I tell the world I’m somewhere, and then someone comes and robs my house? Think of all the scary things that might happen when people know where I am!

Well, it’s not like Facebook’s putting a GPS system on you and announcing your location at every step. This privacy-obliterating behemoth is actually an iPhone app that lets you “check in” to a location so your friends can know where you are- and as such, entirely voluntary, so they’re not forcing anything on you. If you are vacationing in Hawaii and are concerned about thieves breaking into your house, then don’t be so obvious as to announce your absence. Trying to promote privacy by banning such features is sort of like the “Caution: Hot” labels in McDonalds coffee- it serves only to protect idiotic people from their own lack of common sense. That does nothing but prevent them from ever gaining one.

In fact, I believe that Facebook Places actually has the benefit of reducing unwanted ads. Because checking in to a place will allow Facebook to let local businesses to advertise with you, you tend to get advertisements to places that you actually want to go to. For Californians, that’s ads for In-N-Out as opposed to Jak’s Grill (Seattle). If businesses offered coupons and discounts on local Facebook ads, you may even find a good deal in one of those pesky ads.

I’m not saying to totally disregard the risks of Facebook Places, but please don’t act like it’s going to be some major threat to the vaguely defined concept of “privacy”. Whenever new technology is introduced, there will be some discomfort as people get used to it. After that, if it truly is a bad idea, Facebook Places will be axed. If not, it’ll stay. So spare us the Chicken Little act.