Facebook launched their new feature called “Facebook Places” last night, to the excitement of social networking nerds everywhere. Many believe they will put smaller location based social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla out of business. Other’s are beginning to fear for their privacy. The good news is that, there is no need to opt out of Facebook places due to privacy concerns.

Facebook does not track and post where their users are automatically. It is up to you to post your location, by checking in to a place you are currently at. This means, there is no way for people to know where you are, unless you decide to tell them (or your friends do). The only concern you may have is that your friends will tag you in a Facebook checkin. This is where you could lose some privacy rights. However, Facebook allows you to easily disable friends from being able to tag you at a certain location.

To do this, you have to click on the “Account Settings” drop down menu at the top right of your Facebook homepage. Then click on “Privacy Settings”. Once this page loads, click on the link that says “Customize Settings”. You will be taken to a new page, where you should scroll down to the section with the heading “Things Others Share” and find the setting that says “Friends can check me in to Places”. All you have to do is click on the box that says “Enabled” to disable it.

Facebook seems to have taken every precaution over privacy with their new “Places” feature, after many public concerns have arisen in the recent pass over several social networks’ neglect toward the issue.