Facebook Messenger only shares your location when you tell it to
Sharing your location with the person you're chatting with in Facebook Messenger isn't a new feature, but the way its done has changed... thankfully. The app no longer shares your location by default, nixing the stalkerish function that updated folks on your friends list with your movements. Instead, Messenger only sends that info when you tell it to. By tapping on a map pin, those details can be sent as a separate message in a chat window. The app places a small map in your convo as its own note, pointing to either your current spot or a rendezvous point for future reference.
Before this update, the mobile software pinged your phone every time you sent a message and shared that info with your pals. That method of sharing made things like this creepy Chrome extension possible. Of course, Facebook never hid the location-tracking chops of the app, and now it only shares your location with friends when you tell it to. According to TechCrunch, this update is just the beginning of what the folks in Menlo Park have planned for GPS inside the app, so we'll be curious to see how the next stage plays out.
