Facebook users who think that they are safe from unwanted social contacts because of tools that keeps their name from appearing on searches ought to think again. The company announced it would no longer feature that control button.
The feature was being phased out last year for those who weren’t already using it, Entrepreneur reported. But now it’s being deleted entirely — meaning, that users can’t keep their names from appearing in a Graph Search and can’t restrict anybody from finding them on the social media site.
The company said by way of explanation that only a small percent of the 1.2 billion who use the site had been using the setting, anyway, The New York Post reported.
But for those who did, it’s a significant privacy hit — and curiously, it comes just as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took action in his own life to bolster his privacies. Entrepreneur reported that the billionaire paid $30 million to purchase four homes that were located next to his Palo Alto, Calif., mansion.
He made the buys after hearing that a real estate developer wanted to purchase one of the properties and then flip it for profit, touting it as a home next to the famous Mr. Zuckerberg.
SEE ALSO: Court rules Facebook ‘like’ button just as protected as written speech
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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