People are comfortable sharing all kinds of personal details on Internet sites such as Twitter and  Facebook.

And now people are flocking to location-based web services that let them use their mobile phones to alert friends to where they are.

The thing is, that’s dangerous!

Location-based services are all the rage on phones these days. Services like Foursquare are a quick and easy way of updating your friends and contacts on your real-world location, which can be great if you’re trying to meet up with friends or see who in your social circle is nearby.

But one thing many people are forgetting about is that such services are also telling the world where you’re not. Like your home. And it really is telling the world – that information is freely available to anyone.

Don’t believe us? Check out Please Rob Me for a real-time searchable database of people who are not at home.

So please, be careful with location-based social networking. Every time you tell the world you’re at lunch in the city or that you’ve just walked into that cool new bar, you’re telling every burglar in the world with a computer that you’re not at home.

One more reason to make sure that you have a monitored security system!

Stay safe,

Mark