Since the dawn of search engines, internet users have utilized the ability to delete their search history. It’s a simple, quick, and painless way to prevent prying eyes from getting up in your business, for lack of a better phrase.
Now, Facebook is giving their users the ability to monitor their search activity and yes, delete it if that’s what they wish to do.
“Starting today, in addition to your other activity, you’ll be able to see the searches you’re making on Facebook. Just as you can choose to delete any of your posts, you can use the same inline control on Activity Log to remove any of your searches at any time. It’s important to remember that no one else can see your Activity Log, including your search activity,” says Facebook.
All you have to do is go to your Timeline and click on “Activity Log” right under your cover photo. From there, simply click the “all” button at the top right corner and find “search” among the options. You’ll see a list that says “John Q. User searched for _______” and you can delete each search at your own discretion. Of course, your activity log (including your searches) is private anyways, but sometimes it’s good to have ultimate control.
Speaking of Facebook and search…Facebook is doing search. Well, at least some time in the future. Mark Zuckerberg said so himself earlier this month. “We’re basically doing 1 billion queries a day and we’re not even trying. Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have. At some point we’ll do it. We have a team working on it.”
Adding search to the activity log isn’t the only thing Facebook’s done this week to enhance user privacy. Yesterday, they unveiled a new social plugin called Shared Activity, which will allow developers to give users a way to control which activities they share with friends across web apps.
Users should start seeing the “Search” option within the activity log within the next few weeks.