The tool is finally launching, more than a year after the company initially said it would release the feature, originally marketed as “Clear History” by Zuckerberg at the company’s May 2018 developer conference, F8. Just as Facebook still collects aggregated, anonymous browsing information from people who are logged out or don’t have Facebook accounts, Facebook will treat people who have opted out of external website tracking similarly, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed News. However, the data isn’t being removed from Facebook servers. If you disable off-Facebook activity collection or clear off-Facebook activity history, your browsing history won’t be used to target ads to you on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, wrote in a blog post.
In other words, Facebook will still hold on to the data but will anonymize it rather than pair it with your profile.įor example, although your browsing history won’t be used to advertise a discount to an online store you’ve visited before, the activity will still appear in aggregated audience data shown to developers using Facebook’s analytics tools. However, it’s important to note that neither Facebook’s announcement nor screenshots of the feature mention the word “delete” - and that’s because the browsing information isn’t being deleted, it’s simply dissociated from your Facebook account, according to a Facebook spokesperson. The tool, found in account Settings > Off-Facebook Activity, includes an option allowing you to “clear” your browsing history. Facebook said it will continue rolling out the feature everywhere else over the coming months. Some people in Ireland, South Korea, and Spain will gain access to Off-Facebook Activity first. Nearly a third of all websites include a Facebook tracker, according to several studies. You can also opt out of future off-Facebook activity tracking, or selectively stop certain websites from sending your browsing activity to Facebook. The new tool will display a summary of those third-party websites that shared your visit with Facebook, and will allow you to disconnect that browsing history from your Facebook account. Today the company will start to roll out a feature called “Off-Facebook Activity” that allows people to manage that external browsing data - finally delivering on a promise it made over a year ago when CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced at a company event that it would develop a feature then called “Clear History.” But Facebook users have never been able to view this external data Facebook collected about them, until now.įacebook tracks your browsing history via the “Login with Facebook” button, the “like” button, Facebook comments, and little bits of invisible code, called the Facebook pixel, embedded on other sites (including BuzzFeed News).
Basically, Facebook monitors where you go, all across the internet, and uses your digital footprints to target you with ads. That’s why, after you visit a clothing retailer’s website, you’ll likely see an ad for it in your Facebook News Feed or Instagram feed. After a long delay, Facebook is releasing a tool that will allow people to see what kind of information it has collected about their online activity beyond its borders - from the news they read to the shopping websites they visit to the porn they watch - along with an option to dissociate that data from their accounts.įacebook collects information about its users in two ways: first, through the information you input into its website and apps, and second, by tracking which websites you visit while you’re not on Facebook.
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