Earlier this week I tweet about wanting to use Facebook Places on a private Facebook account. However, Facebook’s history of privacy bloopers doesn’t make that a very attractive thing to do if you want to maintain the privacy of a private account. This hassle is evident with Facebook’s Friend’ Suggestions. If your profile is private, you don’t want Facebook suggesting it to people, but it’s hard to avoid and you can’t opt out. Fortunately, you can avoid being checked into a place by your friends whether you’re private or public.

Disable Tagging In Facebook Places

Disabling your friends from checking you into rather embarrassing places on Facebook is easy and simple. If you head into your privacy settings and click “customized settings” you will find an option to disable friends friends from tagging you at places. This option can be found under the “Things others share” section.

In this section you’ll also find the option to exclude yourself from being displayed in “People Here Now” after a check-in (pictured below). Enabling this option allows friends and people checked in nearby to see you. Hopefully, your default profile privacy settings will still remain intact if you leave it enabled.  Can anyone confirm this?

How Are You Using Facebook Places?

Have you started using Facebook Places? I’ve checked-in a few times, but I don’t find myself thinking of using it often. Are your friends checking in? I’ve seen a few, but Foursquare is still moving full speed ahead in my stream.

Thanks to Samir Balwani for the help in find this. Check out his post, Mess With Your Friends Using Facebook Places, which has some more Facebook Places hacks and tips for you.