Having second thoughts about adding your house to foursquare? You can now delete it

From a privacy standpoint, adding your house to foursquare just isn’t a good idea. That hasn’t stopped thousands of users, however, from adding them as venues and checking in on a regular basis. Inevitably, many of those people thought better of it at some point down the road, asking superusers and foursquare staff to close the venue and delete it from foursquare’s database. The process could often take days or weeks before the venue was actually removed.

Now there’s a much simpler path: if you created a venue categorized as a “home,” you can delete it. It’s easy. It’s instantaneous. And it doesn’t take up any time from foursquare’s staff or their team of superusers. It’s a welcome change for everyone involved.

To delete the venue, simply visit the “Edit Venue” page and click the trash can icon under “Want to remove this venue from our database?” A warning dialog appears and then the venue is deleted from foursquare’s servers forever.

This is a great addition that enhances the privacy of users by allowing them to delete their house immediately after realizing the privacy problems it poses to have your home pinpointed in a public database. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much to help the grandmas, dads, aunts, and boyfriends who’ve had their homes added by a family member without their knowledge and now want the venue removed. They’ll need to figure out who added it and request that that user delete it.

Interestingly, the “mark this venue as private” checkbox that’s been a part of adding venues since at least the first part of this year is now gone. It promised the feature was “coming soon” and would have made the venue viewable to only the user’s friends. Presumably, with homes now hidden from the search results and users able to remove their home themselves, foursquare has moved in a different direction from the private venue feature.

/Thanks to superuser Sassy Thomas for bringing this to our attention.