To May: here’s my short reply…
1. The status in question did nothing to point people to their privacy settings, and the point of the blog post wasn’t to inform Facebook users of such. It was, as stated, to debunk the myth stated specifically in the status making circles on profiles. I wasn’t aiming at the mark of “informing those who are concerned about their privacy…”, so is that a miss?

2. The default privacy settings for Places, concerning both who sees your check ins and who can check you in, is for “friends” only. If a user is concerned about their privacy, they should certainly check those settings and manage them accordingly. Which leads me to…

3. While I’d tend to agree with you that the word friend has been redefined in social media, I would disagree that Facebook is responsible. If you don’t want to be friends with that guy you met at a party 3 years ago, then don’t. It’s still up to the end user, and no one is forcing you to maintain old or loose social connections.

Thanks for leaving a comment May.

While yes, the thing going around is about the notifications, it misses the PRIVACY issue.

A user can turn off the notifications but should instead pre-preemptively go to their privacy settings > Custom > Things I share/Things others share and turn off if others can tag them at places.

The issue here isn’t about me sharing with my friends (and let’s face it, the term “Friend” has been massively re-defined by FB to mean “someone I met at a party three years ago who says he knows my sister” instead of “person I like spending time with”) but instead about others sharing information about me without my permission. Do I really want that guy I met at a party three years ago know that I’m at PubXYZ with a mutual friend – probably not. Do I want my overly-friendly co-worker to know that I’m downstairs from my office getting a coffee with overly-friendly coworker #2? Nope. ~I~ should be able to decide the information I share about me; not someone else.

Basically, while you’ve provided some information, you’ve missed the mark in informing those who are concerned about their privacy about how to manage this new feature. Patting your readers on the head and telling them to be informed…. should mean informing them.