New setting leaves nowhere to hide for Facebook's one billion users
Facebook is ending a feature that allowed users to hide from the social network's billion-plus members. The feature will be removed from November 11, meaning that someone looking for another Facebook user can more easily find that person.
Facebook is ending a feature that allowed users to hide from the social network's billion-plus members.
The feature will be removed from November 11, meaning that someone looking for another Facebook user can more easily find that person.
"The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited," said Facebook's chief privacy officer, Michael Richter.
Facebook announced last year that it was ending this feature for new users, but allowed a transition for a "small percentage" of users who had the feature enabled. Richter said the change should not have an impact on overall privacy.
"Whether you've been using the setting or not, the best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share," he said.
Facebook, which has been under scrutiny by privacy advocates, recently revamped its search functions to include a so-called "graph search" that allows users to search through a wide range of posts on the world's biggest social network.
Separately, Google said it was following Facebook's lead for users' pictures and endorsements to appear in product ads.
