Bug Kills Facebook Search Privacy Tool

Having attracted the scorn of various privacy-conscious users following the disappearance of a search history tool, Facebook has said the feature was taken offline by a bug.

Facebook said it is working on a fix to bring the feature back, after it fell off the site late last week. It allowed people to view their search history and delete it, which has become more important since the launch of the comprehensive Graph Search technology.

Privacy problems

Message boards were crammed full of complaints, begging the company to put the tool back on the site, with one user saying: “I’m really disappointed, this was one great feature.”

The fact that it’s a bug and not a purposeful move on Facebook’s side has not impressed others, who blame the “move fast and break things” culture at the social networking giant.

“In Facebook speak: bug = oversight, human error and incompetence. The problem with breaking things… it’s connected to my data,” said F-Secure security advisor Sean Sullivan, in messages over Twitter.

“Facebook needs to grow up, and to stop breaking things.”

Given the criticism levelled at Facebook over privacy, it could do without such glitches. An Austrian student group, Europe-v-Facebook.org, threatened legal action against the social networking giant last year, after it failed to get any legally binding decision to force Facebook to improve privacy for its members.

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