Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, now has Facebook integration. The integration hasn’t gone live for all users quite yet, but it should be “rolling out in the days to come,” says Microsoft.
When you search for a specific person by name using Bing, you’ll see “the people closest to you based on your social connections on Facebook,” provided those people have enabled (or not disabled) the “public search” setting from within their profiles.
You also get to see what your Facebook friends have “liked” when searching for specific things. Microsoft’s Discover Bing site used the example of a search for Iron Man 2 returning links to sites and articles that have been shared and “liked” by your Facebook friends. I searched for “weird things to do when you’re all alone” and, thankfully, none of my friends showed up.
The idea behind the integration is “to help you discover new information and get personalized results in Bing,” according to Microsoft. The assumption is that you have a lot in common with your Facebook friends and, therefore, you’ll gravitate more strongly towards the same types of things on the web. Microsoft also owns a small stake in Facebook, so the integration is kind of a logical step since it’ll benefit both companies.
You can disable the feature in the upper right corner of Bing or from within Facebook itself under Account > Application Settings > Instant personalization. Uncheck the box marked “Enable instant personalization on partner websites.” The public search setting can be toggled under Account > Application Settings > Public search as well.
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