The
'Off-Facebook Activity' tool allows you to control what information about you
is tracked and associated with your Facebook account.
As of
Tuesday, you can now turn off the collection and sharing of data that sites and apps send
to Facebook. You might have had some idea that
Facebook was keeping tabs on what you do, but I'm willing to bet you'll be
surprised by the volume of information Facebook has about you. In fact, as I wrote earlier today, even your Ring doorbell
app is sharing information with Facebook.
Websites
and apps use Facebook's Pixel and software development kit (SDK) to collect
information about your device and your activity, and send that to Facebook.
Facebook uses that information to then show you targeted ads.
It's
why people are convinced Facebook must be listening to their conversations
since they see ads in their News Feed for the very products or items they were
just talking about. Here's a newsflash: Facebook doesn't need to listen to your
conversations. It already knows so much about you, it can practically read your
thoughts.
If you
don't believe me, the "Off-Facebook Activity" tool that Facebook announced back in August is
finally available. Go take a look at exactly what Facebook has collected about
you. You might be surprised at all of the sites and apps you use on a regular
basis who are sharing information about what you do.
Here's
how to find out what sites are sending information to Facebook about you.
The "Off-Facebook-Activity" tool
isn't easy to find (though you can click that link to go directly to it). If
you want to navigate there, click on the drop-down carrot in the top right of
the desktop version of Facebook. Then select "Settings" and
"Your Facebook Information." There you'll find an option for
"Off-Facebook Activity."
JASON ATEN
There
you'll find a list of all the sites that are sharing information with Facebook,
and you can clear your history (removing this information from your account),
turn off tracking for specific sites, or disable this tracking completely. To
be clear, if you turn it off, Facebook will still receive information about
your activity, it just won't be associated with your account.
Also,
turning off this type of data sharing does mean that you won't be able to use
Facebook to log in to other apps or sites. Never mind that you shouldn't be
using it, for this very reason, but if you are, you'll be logged out and have
to create a new login for those accounts or apps.
I don't
often give Facebook credit for considering the privacy interests of its users, but this is a
welcome step in the right direction. The company has often had a hard time
balancing its need to know as much as it can about you so that it can monetize
that information, with the ability for users to control what information is
being collected and tracked. While there are still a lot of changes Facebook
will have to make before it can really claim to be a "privacy-protective" platform,
this is a good start.
PUBLISHED
ON: JAN 29, 2020
The opinions expressed
here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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