“I like Foursquare because I can actually pick who sees where I actually am, compared to Facebook, where I have 1,200 friends,” she said. “I don’t want 1,200 people knowing where I am.” Facebook does let users pick a smaller subgroup of friends who can see location updates, but Ms. Lovelidge said it would be too much trouble to set that up.

Emphasis mine. This isn’t lost on Facebook. Zuckerberg himself said: “But guess what? Nobody wants to make lists”.

The problem is that for every Ms. Lovelidge who at least acknowledges the risk and avoids it, there will be 10 others completely oblivious to the risks.

One great lesson here is that you can’t change the paradigm and assume an old security model, in this case the “friends” network will continue to work. This is the equivalent to turning a store into a private residence without bothering to replace the open store front with a more traditional door.

…more than half of the children surveyed (54%) don’t personally know all of the friends…

54% of teens surveyed don’t know all their “friends”. Facebook defaults the privacy settings on places to “friends”. 54% of children surveyed will likely be sharing their current location with people they don’t personally know. Places will catch on, especially once the check-in games start coming up and it becomes more fun and competitive. Half will likely share their location with people they don’t know.

Think about this for a second. Just a few years ago society would have found the idea of teenagers revealing their current location to people they don’t even personally know to be insanity.

It’s easy to fix, just setup a group and include/exclude as desired. The problem is awareness of the problem is low. Also problematic is the desire and patience to sort through several hundred “friends” and bucket people.

It would also be easy for Facebook to fix by forcing users to either select specific groups or individuals rather than just defaulting to the overly broad “friends”. They have the UI, and it’s actually pretty good (I’ve got some gripes, but they don’t apply to 99.9% of the population) they just don’t make users go through it for the sake of simplicity.

I don’t really like this.

Decisions on who qualifies as a friend may have been made a few years ago when the risks were different and content being exposed was much less harmful. Letting a stranger see your obnoxious status update is different than letting them know where you are.

MG Siegler at TechCrunch just realized this himself and cut the number of friends he had in half. To quote:

Facebook is mutating. The problem is that the original social graph isn’t built for this mutation. And we’re going to see that very clearly with things like this new location element.

I’d argue MG Siegler is brighter and more in tune to this sort of thing than 90%+ of Facebook users. Perhaps 99%. If he just realized this now, it’s going to take a long time for the more casual user to catch on.

As I wrote last week, the term “friend” has been grossly distorted over the past few years. I strongly suspect the most at risk users are the ones who distorted it the most. Defaulting things like Places to “friends” isn’t good enough.

You’ll be seeing more about this in the press over the coming several months. This is going to get messy as people leak information they didn’t intend to.

It’s worth noting that Facebook restricts check-ins to friends only. This is different from almost anything they have done in the past where they opted for more public views. Clearly they knew location was pushing the envelope and choose a more restricted view.

One of the more peculiar features, the ability for friends to “tag your location”. This essentially lets your friends check you in. From the FAQ:

The first time you use Places, or the first time a friend tries to tag you in to a Place with him or her, you will receive a notification asking you to share your location and allow friends to check you in to Places.

At any time, you can also adjust this setting by navigating to the main Privacy Settings page and clicking the “Customize settings” link at the bottom of the page. Then, simply choose the Enabled in the dropdown box next to “Friends can check me into Places.”

There are two things at play here. The first is the default of “friends”, the second is the ability for a friend to tag you. Lets start with the default of “friends”.

Default “Friends”

Because of this notice Facebook feels the product is opt-in and not opt-out. Defaulting this to “friends” and not forcing users to select a group or groups isn’t a great idea. This is especially true for minors. Thanks to Facebook being a popularity contest, things like serial friending are too common. Exposing this type of information to that many people in real-time is reckless. Decisions on who qualifies as a friend may have been made a few years ago when the risks were different and content being exposed was much less harmful. Letting a stranger see your obnoxious status update is different than letting them know where you are.

For those not familiar with sociology, Dunbar’s number is the theoretical cognitive limit to the amount people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. It lies between 100 and 230, commonly set at 150. The *average* user has 130 friends according to Facebook’s statistics when this blog post was published. Keep in mind this is the average of all users including those who rarely and never use it and abandoned accounts. If I had to guesstimate the average for a High School or College student is likely in the low 200′s. I suspect I may actually be (intentionally) overly conservative. I don’t think anyone has real data broken down by age group (though if you do, pass it along).

We can reasonably deduce that the average teenager has more “friends” than friends. At least in some cases perhaps more than even acquaintances. Odds are they don’t even recall approving some.

Facebook should have instead made users select individual friends or groups that can view places rather than make it accessible to anyone who is a “friend”. At a minimum that should have applied to minors and those with inordinate number of friends for their demographic. Because of friending behaviors in the past the concept of a “friend” doesn’t secure this feature adequately. It may be the users fault, but “the customer is always right”.

Tagging Friends

Letting friends tag you is a whole other set of risks. I’ll quote The Consumerist since they were quite whimsical at giving examples:

This could lead to friends tagging you as being inside a peepshow, or an ex-girlfriend tagging you as being with another girl so your new girlfriend gets pissed off. The sitcom storyline possibilities are endless!

Obviously there are times most people don’t want others to know about what they are doing both innocent and nefarious. In extreme cases this could even become a safety issue. Of course crimes committed through Facebook already existed (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C), this just makes it easier especially in the case of serial friending. No longer does someone need to solicit location information, it’s now being broadcasted.

It’s worth noting it’s possible to remove a place you were tagged:

If a friend has tagged you in a Place and you would like to remove your name, simply go to the Place story (you can find it on your profile, your friend’s profile, or the Place page) and select “Remove Tag.” You will no longer be connected to that Place through that story.

Remember that only your confirmed friends on Facebook are able to tag you in a Place if you have enabled them to do so in the “Customize settings” section of the main Privacy Settings page.

Of course that’s in retrospect.

People Here Now

Described by Facebook:

In the “People Here Now” section, you can see others who are checked in with you at that place. This section is visible for a limited amount of time and only to people who are checked in there. That way you can meet other people who might share your interests. If you prefer not to appear in this section, you can control whether you show up by unchecking the “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in” privacy control.

This has some obvious sore points. At a stadium or concert with hundreds or thousands of people it’s relatively anonymous with random faces and names. In a more intimate setting such as a restaurant or store it would relatively easy to match faces and full names. Given some basic info like a full name, network, current location a lot can be learned by using Google and public information databases. I suspect this has not so obvious implications for many who will not uncheck this preference.

Facebook should have used just first names to ensure some privacy.

Other Risks

There are other risks as well. Any serial use of such a feature will reveal patterns about your daily life such as when you leave and get home, visit the gym, etc. Timing attacks become easier when an attacker can plan without having to actually stake out a victim.

Then there’s the question of what will be done with all the data collected over time by millions of users. This isn’t 100% clear just yet. That’s a privacy issue, but not so much safety issue.

Bottom Line

Proceed with caution. Facebook did prepare for privacy implications better this time than any other release they have done in the past. This however is a whole new ballgame. Facebook could still improve by making some changes as I discussed above. Even with the defaults there are clear and present dangers. Unlike FourSquare or Gowalla where users subscribed with location sharing in mind, this was dropped on Facebook users who likely didn’t intend to share that much with that many people.

Seinfeld

I’m borderline obsessed with Seinfeld, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seinfeld starring Jerry Seinfeld aired on NBC from 1989 – 1998. Needless to say this is one of the first I found. Seinfeld’s actual apartment exterior is in LA, not New York. Notably if you pan around a little bit you’ll see palm trees you’d never find in New York. It’s actually somewhat bizarre:

Monks Cafe is also real, though in real life it’s Tom’s Restaurant. Google has it a little washed out, but you can tell what it is:

The famous “Soup Nazi” is no longer there, but there’s now a chain of stores operating around. This is the famous location in New York where it all started:

Roseanne

Rosanne ran on ABC from 1988 to 1997 featuring Roseanne Connor played by Rosanne Barr living in fictional blue-collar Lanford, Illinois. The real house is in Evansville, Indiana. It still looks almost identical:

Family Matters

Family Matters aired ABC from 1989 – 1997 as part of TGIF and CBS for 1997 – 1998. The famous Winslow house is actually located in Chicago. I’m not sure if the building to the left was there when the show aired. I don’t recall it being there:

Perfect Strangers

Perfect Strangers aired on ABC 1986-1993 mostly during TGIF. Here’s Larry & Balki’s apartment exterior from Perfect Strangers (TV) from the 2nd season until they moved into the house:

Here’s the Chicago Chronicle where they worked. I’m pretty sure these are the doors used for the revolving door bit at the end of the intro:

Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch aired from 1969 – 1974 on ABC. Here’s the famous Brady Bunch house. Despite the changes the owners have made to deter tourists from gawking and even crossing onto the property, it’s obviously the Brady house (more about the history of the house can be found here):

Full House

Full House aired from 1987 – 1995 on ABC mainly during TGIF. The Tanners lived on 1882 Girard Street in San Francisco, CA. Many mistakenly think that the tanner residence is depicted in the intro, when in fact that’s actually them having a picnic in the park across from the famous Painted Ladies.

The actual house used is another San Francisco house:

Friends

Friends aired on NBC from 1994 – 2004 featuring a group of friends who somehow managed to afford a rather large apartment in NYC despite struggling financially:

Malcolm in the Middle

Malcom in the Middle aired on Fox from 2000 – 2006. Interestingly the house looks much nicer in real life than it did on the show:

Happy Days

Happy Days was an iconic show that aired from 1974 – 1984. The house is a little obscured by trees, but still recognizable. I can hear the The Fonz’s motorcycle from here:

All in the Family

All in the Family ran on CBS from 1971 – 1979 then was continued as Archie Bunker’s Place from 1979 – 1983. Here’s the house from the original All in the Family:

The Jeffersons

The Jeffersons was a spin-off of All In The Family that aired on CBS from 1975 – 1985. Here’s their Upper East Side apartment:

The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show aired on NBC from 1984 – 1992 starring Bill Cosby. The actual house is in lower Manhattan. Cosby is said to have insisted that the show be taped in New York and was taped at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens:

Who’s the Boss

Who’s the Boss ran on ABC from 1984 to 1992. It actually debuted on the same day as The Cosby Show. I even managed to get the house at about the same angle you’d remember it in the intro:

Cheers

Cheers ran on NBC from 1982 – 1993. The Bull & Finch Pub became famous because of the show:

The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years aired from 1988 – 1993 on ABC. There’s no street view available yet, but the house is visible on Google Maps:

Married With Children

Married with children aired on Fox from 1987 – 1992 featuring Ed O’Neil as shoe salesman Al Bundy. My research strongly suggests the house with the black roof on the right is the house:

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air aired on NBC from 1990 – 1996 starring Will Smith. No street view for this one either but you can make out the house from the satellite view pretty well:

The Love Boat

The Love Boat aired on ABC from 1977 – 1986. The ship mostly used was the Pacific Princess, now MS Pacific. And yes, she’s still afloat:

Leave it to Beaver

Leave it to Beaver aired on CBS then ABC from 1957 – 1963. Leave it to Beaver is actually an interesting story. The Pine Street house is on the Universal set and still exists.

For the Leave it to Beaver movie, they built another Pine Street house. This and the Munster house are now part of Wisteria Lane on ABC’s Desperate Housewives. In fact several of those houses were in movies or TV shows.

Growing Pains

Growing Pains aired on ABC from 1985 – 1992. The house shown in the Growing Pains opening credits is actually on the WB backlot from what I understand, and was re purposed for Gilmore Girls.

The Partridge Family, Dennis The Menace, Bewitched, Friends Fountain

The Warner Brothers Ranch has a bunch of pretty cool homes and artifacts including the Friends Fountain. You can see them from overhead. Mouse over to see what’s what.

Ghostbusters

This is a movie not a sitcom, but I’m still listing it because it’s awesome. The Ghostbusters firehouse:

This blog post took way longer to compile than I even thought it would. Hope you enjoyed it.