You can no longer hide from search results, Facebook updated its privacy setting

Like it or not, you can no longer hide your Facebook profile from search results. Facebook has removed the privacy setting that allowed users to prevent others from searching for them by name on the site.

The search setting “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” was removed last year for people who weren’t using it. For the small percentage of people still using the setting, they will see reminders about it being removed in the coming weeks.

According to Facebook, The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited. But 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 also made Facebook’s search feature feel broken at times. 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.” Michael Richter, Chief Privacy Officerof Facebook, said in a statement.

Facebook says only a small percentage of users have enabled the setting and they will receive the notifications about the changes in their home page, soon.