One of Facebook Messenger's greatest pitfalls is the easily accessed location-sharing button: the little arrow in the text box. Accidentally tap it, and you've just published your whereabouts to a group of coworkers or that cute guy you've been chatting up.
But Facebook is trying a new approach with an update rolling out to iOS and Android.
"Now you can choose to explicitly send a map of your location or another particular place as a separate message," Stan Chudnovsky, head of product for Messenger, wrote in an announcement.
Say you're meeting a friend for lunch: Just tap the More icon (three dots) or the location pin at the bottom of the screen, then search for the restaurant, and send a map. Running late? Share a map of your current location. The maps arrive as a separate message in your chat log.
"With this update, you have full control over where and how you share your location information," Chudnovsky said.
One thing that won't change is Facebook's method for receiving location data. As always, Messenger does not collect details unless the user enables it on their device. And when it does, that data is gathered only when the user selects a location and sends it using the app.
"We are not requesting any new permissions for your information," Chudnovsky promised.
This update will help take out "creepy" services like the "Marauder's Map" Chrome extension, which used location data from sent messages to plot people's positions on a chart.