By Robert Plunkett

Can someone find out if you’ve been looking at their Facebook or LinkedIn profile? Can you tell if someone’s unfriended you? And can you see what searches have been performed with your name? Bottom line answer is: not really.

There are plenty of services promising to show you who is “stalking” your Facebook page. But they are all scams. The tech people at Facebook insist NO ONE can see who’s been on your Facebook page. There are no features buried in the Facebook settings with that data. There are no apps that can unearth that info. You can’t see who’s looking at your profile and no one can see if you’ve been looking at theirs.

Still, there are apps and tools to see who’s unfriended you. Facebook tries to squelch these apps, but they exist. You can download one for your computer called “UnFriend Finder” and one for Android called “Friends Checker”.  Sign in, and they store a list of your friends.  Then every time you check back, it tells you who’s no longer on the list.  UnFriend Finder also reminds you of friend requests you’ve made that haven’t been answered. For Twitter, “Owitter” does the same thing, telling you who’s unfollowed you each week.

LinkedIn does let you see who’s viewed your profile. This feature is on the right column of the site and looks like an ad. But click it to see a handful of people who’ve most recently looked at your profile. To access a comprehensive list of people checking up on you, you have to pay $8 to upgrade to a premium membership.

It can make sense if you’re looking for a job and want to know which hiring managers are checking up on you. If you network for business, this feature could tell you which sales leads are vetting you. Another professional site for academics and researchers called “Academia.edu” has the same useful feature.

As far as who is searching you, search companies will not reveal any data about searches, unless you have a warrant. So any come-on promising to tell you who’s searching for you is a scam. Still, you can find out what search terms people combine with your name. Google AdWords offers a “keyword search”.  It will tell you what corollary terms are associated with the search for your name. That’s about the best you can do.