How to turn off check-ins?
I think you need to adjust the settings in the Google Maps application that control this. Launch Maps and press the overflow menu icon (the three dots in the bottom right on Vanilla Android; you may need to access your settings slightly differently on other devices with custom UI skins), then go to Settings =&gt; Location settings and scroll down. You should see a subsection labeled "Check-ins":



If you also want the cards for nearby places to be hidden then you can do that in Google Now's settings. Select Settings =&gt; Google Now =&gt; Places and turn those cards off.