Foursquare is cracking down on cheaters. The location-based service now gives businesses the option to revoke the title of mayor from users they think may have earned the title in an unscrupulous manner.

A Foursquare user is granted a mayorship for having the most check-ins at a venue in a 60-day period. Some venues give discounts for the mayor, like a free appetizer or discounted drinks at check-in. However, this position isn't always pbtained by legitimate means.

A cheating user can be removed as mayor for two reasons. First, the user could potentially check-in from somewhere else or check-in when he or she walks by the particular business. Second, only customers and frequent visitors of a venue are eligible to be the mayor, not employees. So if a user hasn't really been going to the venue or is employed by the venue, their title can be taken away.

"On Monday, we gave verified business owners the ability to oust a Mayor if they have reason to believe the Mayorship was not gained through legitimate check-ins," Foursquare said in a statement. "If a Mayor is flagged by a business owner, they'll be removed from office immediately and the next user in line will take over as Mayor. We're still in the very early stages of experimenting with this feature and will most likely be tweaking it based on feedback from business owners."

The new feature was first discussed on the blog of MGH, a marketing firm that handles promotion for Miss Shirley's, a Baltimore restaurant. Apparently, Miss Shirley's is a venue where competition to be mayor is pretty fierce because on busy nights, the mayor is allowed to forgo a long waiting list.

"This site update serves as a much-needed feature for businesses, as it will help to keep the integrity of the specials and allow the actual loyal customers to benefit, as opposed to the 'arm chair' mayors," MGH wrote on the post, which was linked to by Read Write Web. "In the past, businesses were required to work with reps at Foursquare to deal with cheating users. Now the power and onus is in the hands of the businesses running the special, alleviating concerns expressed by business owners considering launching a mayor special through their site."

MGH has published a case study about using Foursquare to promote the restaurant.

Additional reporting by Chloe Albanesius