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Facebook will no longer let you hide from search results

You will not be able to run or hide anymore from the search option on Facebook. The social networking website is issuing reminders to the small percentage of

Nishtha Kanal|Oct 11, 2013, 08:56:22 IST

You will not be able to run or hide anymore from the searched option on Facebook. The social networking website is issuing reminders to the small percentage of users still using the old search setting that let them be hidden from the “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” feature. If you’ve been using that feature still, Facebook will now let people look your Timeline up merely by typing your name.

Late last year in December, Facebook removed the feature from Privacy settings for those who did not have it enabled. For the small minority of users who did use this setting to be hidden from search results, Facebook let it hang around d for a good ten months or so.

No more hiding

With this search cloaking gone, Facebook is urging users to make sure they protect their privacy by making sure you choose who can see the individual things you share. The next time you’re posting on Facebook, make sure you take the time to understand who the post is visible to and how can you change the settings.

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Ideally, you could choose the Friends only setting which will ensure this particular post isn’t visible to everyone who searches for your profile. More importantly, when you head on to your own profile, you can hit on the Settings option and then “View as” to see how exactly your profile looks to someone who isn’t friends with you.

This inability to hide from search results comes thanks to the wider rollout of Facebook’s powerful search feature called Graph Search. Facebook says that the setting of hiding from search results was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and was limited. Back then, it didn’t prevent people from navigating to your Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed, or from a mutual friend’s Timeline.

With Graph Search allowing users to search for common terms like “People who stay in Mumbai” or “People who listen to Metal,” your profile is bound to show up. With the "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" tool, search results turned out to be slightly broken at times when friends tried to look you up in a common search term but couldn’t find you.

If you still have the old setting but are unsure of whether or not you’re using it, Facebook will make sure to show you a message on your News Feed before taking you off the privacy tool. Essentially, you will have to be extra cautious about your privacy on the post level since your profile will inadvertently be available for anyone to look up now.

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.