Stop Facebook from Selling Out Your Browsing Data

As we all know, Facebook is never a privacy-friendly place, and it never fails to provoke its users with frequent changes that disregard your privacy. Earlier this June, Facebook stated that its plans to share any and all the data it has collected by tracking your app and browsing history with the third parties and advertisers to show you more relevant ads. So, who is affected by this change? Well, almost everyone who has logged into their Facebook accounts, be it today, last week or last month.

Of course, Facebook has stated several times that they have given users more control over the ads they see, and they also stated that they won’t share any personally identifiable information. But that doesn’t mean they have given you any control over what data Facebook can collect from you or what it will do with the collected data. Previously, Facebook used to serve the ads based on post shares, page likes, post likes, information submitted by the user, and any other data in your Facebook account. But now, Facebook just wants to peek into your app and web browsing history. If you don’t like these changes or if you wish to opt out of this feature, here is how you can do it.

You Can Customize The Ads

With the recent changes, users can now click on the top right side corner of an ad and can tell Facebook if that displayed ad is relevant to them or not, and users can know why they are seeing that ad in the first place. Using this new feature, they can also tell Facebook which ads they would prefer to see. This greatly increases the relevancy of the ads they see. You can learn more about these changes from Facebook’s newsroom.

Opt Out of Facebook Sharing Your App and Browsing Data

The good thing about this change introduced by Facebook is that you can opt out of it on demand. If you don’t want to share your app and browsing data with third parties, head to Digital Advertising Alliance. Here under the “Companies Customizing Ads For Your Browser” tab, select the check box “Facebook Inc” and click on the “submit your choices” button. Of course, if you want, you can also select any other website(s) that you want to opt out of from interest based ads.

As soon as you opt out of this feature, Facebook won’t sell or share your app or browsing history data with the third party advertising companies. That said, it doesn’t stop Facebook from collecting your app or browsing history.

However, if you are using a Facebook app on smartphones like Android, then you can opt out of interest-based ads with the instructions here.

Conclusion

It does seem like Facebook stepped a little over the boundaries but giving users a choice to opt out of these interest-based ads is welcoming. So what do you think of these new changes? Do these changes stop you from using Facebook or do you love these changes as you get to receive more relevant ads? Do comment below with your thoughts.

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