Facebook removes option to hide your name in search

Facebook is getting rid of a privacy feature that allowed users to limit who could find them on the social network.

The search setting was removed last year for people who were not using it. Those who are still using the setting will see reminders about it being removed in the coming weeks. This only applies to a "small percentage" of users, according to Facebook.

"The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited. For example, 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," said Facebook's chief privacy officer Michael Richter in a blog post.
"Today, people can also search Facebook using Graph Search (for example, 'People who live in Seattle,') making it even more important to control the privacy of the things you share rather than how people get to your Timeline."
The setting made the search feature feel broken at times, according to Facebook, and some people found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and could not find them in search results.
Facebook said that, whether you have 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.
Anyone who wants to limit the audience of posts they have shared in the past can do this on the privacy settings page. This means any posts that were previously shared with Friends of Friends or Public will now be shared just with Friends.

Source : The Telegraph