Facebook is removing a small yet very important privacy setting that prevented random people from looking up your profile by name, although there remains a broader possibility of finding the profile in other ways.
Facebook is the leading social networking site in the world with over 1.2 billion active monthly users. Security has been a major concern as people share private information and photos, which can be misused if it falls into wrong hands. Hence, the company has mainly focused on giving users a variety of security options that can help them share content with known people. But in the latest move, the social network has decided to pull off one of its prominent security settings that prevented random users to look up others' profiles by name.
The removal of the "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" setting may not be as dire as it sounds. But still a small percentage of users chose to have the setting for their security benefit. Facebook brought down the feature from several accounts that hadn't used it, December last year. But the setting remained active for those who used it, until now. After the latest announcement Thursday, Facebook will notify all users who use the setting by displaying a message on the top of the News Feed section. The message warns users about the removal of the security setting due to its minimal benefit. Also, Facebook suggests other settings that can help maintain privacy in a better way.
The security setting only prevented users to keep their Timeline a secret when others tried searching by name. However, there are many other simple ways to find people you are looking for. If a user is tagged in photo or a status, which appears on the news feed of "Friends of Friends", then the profile can be found by just clicking on the name. But the better way to protect your information is to limit the type of people "who can see my stuff."
"The setting also made Facebook's search feature feel broken at times," Michael Richter, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer explained in ablog post. "For example, people told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and couldn't find them in search results, or when two people were in a Facebook Group and then couldn't find each other through search."
acebook suggests other settings under "Privacy shortcuts" to control your privacy. Users can also choose to share the information in each post by individually blocking them every time. If users are more concerned about being stalked, they can "untag" themselves from posts and photos that seem to expose them to strangers or ask friends not to share information you are tagged in publicly.
