Facebook knows what you search and do on other websites and applications. However, do you know the company has introduced a tool that could stop it from collecting users’ data from third parties?

It is not new to the world that Facebook uses tools to track people across the internet. Even if you do not have an account on the social media platform, which is odd considering Facebook reached 2.5 billion monthly users, the site can still track you. 

Casey Oppenheim, the co-founder of data security firm Disconnect, says that most people do not understand that Facebook tracks you even if you are not on the platform. 

Facebook tracking techniques practiced by the company for years came under intense scrutiny after a decade of encountering data privacy scandals. The well-known Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018 brought Facebook under the hot water. The major political scandal revealed that Cambridge Analytica harvested million’s of data of Facebook users without users’ consent. The data is later comes in use for political advertising on the platform. 

Cambridge Analytica debacle is just one example of how Facebook lost its trust in the eyes of its users who had faith in the company’s strict privacy policies.

Regain Customer Trust with Off-Facebook Activity

After encountering countless privacy breaching scandals and lawsuits, Facebook has seen a major drop in platform activities since April 2018. According to a business analytics firm, Mixpanel, actions on Facebook such as post sharing, likes, and comments have dropped by almost 20%. 

Thus to regain the lost customer trust, Facebook worked on many features that could ensure the safety of users’ data on the platform. 

Facebook off-activity is one such Facebook effort that allows users to manage and delete their data that third-party and apps share with Facebook. 

The feature introduced in 2019 at Facebook’s annual developer conference initially named “Clear History.” However, the company realized that the name might confuse users who may consider it as a tool that could wipe out the data they publish on the social network itself. 

Therefore, the new name “Off-Facebook activity,” was used as the company considered it a better name to clarify how the tool works.

How Off-Facebook Activity Tool Work

With Off-Facebook activity tool users can: 

• View a summary of information other websites and apps send Facebook. The information sent through online Facebook login and Facebook Pixel, the online Facebook business tools.
• Disconnect or delete the provided information to Facebook from third parties from their account.
• Choose to disconnect “future off-Facebook activity” from their account for more secure internet activities. 

The tool allows users to see and control data that the other applications and websites share with the mega social network. 

The information shared with Facebook from apps and third party sites will be visible to the users through off Facebook activity tool. The users are allowed to disconnect and delete the information shared with Facebook through their social media account. 

Users can also either disconnect the future off-Facebook activity from their account completely or just for specific websites or applications. 

What Happens When Users Turn Off-Facebook Activity On

Most people do not understand how Facebook helps businesses target customers. The perception of Facebook listening in their user smartphones has been widely accepted as a Facebook strategy to target customers and benefit businesses. However, the truth is Facebook’s powerful ad targeting capabilities and businesses that share data with the platform facilitates accurate ad targeting on the social networking site.

However now with Off-Facebook activity, users can delete their web activities information. This means that Facebook will not know which website you visited or which products you looked at. 

The Off-Facebook activity will assure that your newsfeed is free from targeted ads by the business holders once you turn the tool on.

Here is how simply you can enable the off-Facebook activity tool for ab better user experience: 

Go to Settings > Your Facebook Information > Off-Facebook Activity to manage clear all history and turn of any future activity on Facebook that hinders your privacy on the internet. 

Another way to safeguard your web activity information from Facebook is to go to Settings on your phone or desktop and select Ad preferences. 

Under the option of advertisers and businesses, you can see which advertisers run ads using a list uploaded to Facebook containing your information. 

Conclusion

Websites and applications use software development kit and Facebook Pixel to collect information about the user device and activity. This information is then sent to Facebook, which targets customers based on the report. However, with the off-Facebook activity tool, it will not be easy for a business to collect user information easily anymore. 

To ensure a better user experience in a more private and personalized social media network, Facebook has created this tool. Therefore, with just Windstream Kinetic Internet, users can enable the tool with their social media account.