Keep websites and apps from telling Facebook what you do.
Facebook’s new privacy tool addresses
privacy issues.
Facebook is launching a brand new feature that enables you to see and manage information that apps and websites share with the platform.
It’s known as Off-Facebook
Activity and it allows you to keep
track of the type of data third-party apps can access and what they’re using it for. As an example, if you’re buying the Galaxy Note 10, Facebook can determine what you were looking for and show you targeted
ads for that phone.
With the new privacy feature, you’ll be able to tell Facebook
to disconnect any info that the corporate has shared from
your account, and it’ll stop showing you those targeted ads. Its launch follows
a $5 billion fine from the FTC and a commitment from Facebook to better protect users’ privacy.
Facebook is additionally modifying its
ad library, “Why am I seeing this ad?” and is adding a brand new feature referred to as “Why am I
seeing this post?” this will assist you manage what you see from your
friends, pages and groups in
your News Feed.
As of right now, Off-Facebook Activity is merely accessible in Ireland, South Korea and Spain, however it’ll roll out everywhere else
over the approaching months.
Here’s everything we know to date.
The new Facebook feature permits you to regulate which internet sites share
your info.
How Off-Facebook Activity will work.
Using Facebook’s business tools, you’ll be able to see what info apps and websites have sent
through Facebook. From there, you’ll
be able to take away the data from your account and turn off future
“off-Facebook activity” from your account. You’ll be able to manage this for all apps and websites therefore they’ll no longer be able to share your
activities with Facebook.
When it’s accessible, you’ll head
to Settings > Your Facebook info > Off-Facebook Activity. From there, you’ll be able to manage your Off-Facebook
Activity, clear all history and
switch off any future activity to your account, Facebook says.
What happens when you put off the
off-Facebook activity?
Once you clear the off-Facebook activity,
Facebook will take away your identifying info that the apps and websites
share. Which means Facebook
won’t know which websites you visited or
what you checked out, therefore you won’t see any
targeted ads from those sites.
As the Washington Post points out, however,
your information isn’t deleted, simply anonymized.
Turn off your off-Facebook activity.
What you can do for
now.
If you’d prefer to control which ads you see (or don’t) on
Facebook, head to your
Settings on your phone or desktop and
choose Ad Preferences.
Under Advertisers and Businesses, you’ll be able to see which advertisers have run
ads using a list
uploaded to Facebook containing your info. For now, you
can opt to hide
ads from any of the advertisers.
You can additionally head to Ad
Settings and switch off
ads based on information from partners,
ads based on your
activity on Facebook Company merchandise that you see elsewhere and ads
that include your
social actions. However, doing this won’t delete any information and you’ll still
see a similar number of ads as before. The
off-Facebook activity feature should change this once it’s unrolled.