Facebook has made the their clear history tool available for everyone worldwide – this includes your Off-Facebook Activity data, that consist of your activities that businesses give to Facebook so the social media can send you targeted ads.
According to a blog by CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, a prompt will be sent out in stages to all users to review their privacy settings. From there, you get a somewhat holistic settings page that lets you control who sees your posts or profile information, and tweak the information your share with apps.
The main feature that most people will want to make use of is the Off-Facebook Activity tool that lets you clear any information Facebook has on you that was given to them by businesses such as online retailers and such.
Image credit: Gizmodo
But, here’s the catch – the folks at Gizmodo has pointed out that the feature doesn’t necessarily devoid their systems of your shopping or browsing data – but rather it disconnects what they already have from your Facebook identity.
Gizmodo’s article points out that upon clicking that ‘clear history’ button, you’ll be prompted with the message “Your activity history will be disconnected from your account. We’ll continue to receive your activity from the businesses and organizations you visit in the future”.
So what this is saying is, the data Facebook collects won’t have a face to it – but they still have it, and along with it possibly your location and probably more. The only difference is that your Facebook life won’t be entangled in your shopping life – however, your data is still very much in Facebook’s hands, and you’ll still be served with targeted ads.
The new feature isn’t rolled out to everyone yet, but once you get it – we’d say you should still have a look at your privacy settings and make the necessary tweaks,