How to stop your friends from checking you in on Foursquare

Foursquare on Tuesday released an update to both its Android and iOS apps, giving users the ability to check their friends into a venue, without their friends having to do a thing. According to Foursquare, the ability to check in friends is the most requested feature to date. Well, those who sent in the requests can now be happy, but for those who would rather have control over their digital whereabouts -- you'll need to disable the feature.

The first time a friend attempts to check you into a venue, you'll receive an alert asking you to approve it. If you decide to approve it, keep in mind that this approval now goes into place for all future check-ins. So the next time a friend checks you into a venue, you won't be able to approve it, it will automatically appear in your timeline. You will, however, receive an alert letting you know a friend checked you in, and have the ability to delete the check-in from the app.

Should that situation of having to monitor check-ins and delete unwanted activity from your timeline not sit well with you, you can disable friends from checking you in altogether (assuming you approved the first check-in) in the settings of either iOS or Android app.

• Launch the updated Foursquare app and slide out the menu on the left-hand side. At the bottom is the Settings option; tap on it.

• Tap on the option in the middle of the list called "Check-ins By Friends." Toggle the switch (iOS) or uncheck the box (Android) to disable the feature.

I understand Foursquare sends an alert and gives users the ability to delete check-ins, but not everyone always has their device nearby and can monitor what's going on. It would be nice to see an option to receive an alert and individually approve check-ins. Maybe it's already being worked on and Foursquare just wanted to ship the feature to get feedback; who knows? What I do know is there needs to be a better way of doing this.