Facebook has been around for over a decade and has undergone many changes while being embroiled in numerous controversies.
From massive data leaks to mismanagement and selling of user data, Facebook’s privacy issues have been significant.
But one thing that has remained constant is that Facebook, along with Google, is one of the biggest data-harvesting companies in the world. This isn’t likely to change because data is the lifeblood of Facebook’s business model.
With AI becoming more prevalent and politicians doing little to address privacy concerns (kudos to our European friends for protecting online privacy), the dream of true privacy seems increasingly out of reach.
For example, Facebook has a feature that tracks every website you have visited in the past years. It stores various activities you performed on those websites, including the date and time spent there, links you clicked, items you added to your cart, and whether you made a purchase, etc.
Here’s how this feature works and how to turn it off.
How Facebook Tracks You When You’re Not On Facebook
But first, you may wonder how Facebook collects data about the websites I visit if I’m not signed in to Facebook.
Facebook can achieve this in two main ways:
First, through Facebook Pixel, a piece of code that advertisers embed on their websites. This code snippet tracks your activity on the website and sends the information back to Facebook.
Second, through the Like button, Login with Facebook, or social sharing buttons, you see across the internet. When your browser loads these features, it communicates with Facebook’s servers, even if you are not logged into Facebook.
These methods enable website owners to understand how you interact with their site and target ads more effectively. Additionally, they allow Facebook to build a profile of your interests and browsing habits.
Now that you understand how Facebook tracks your activity even when you’re not using the platform, here’s how to delete that data and disable this feature.
How to Stop Websites from Sharing Info with Facebook
1. Open the Facebook app on your iPhone and tap on your profile image in the bottom right corner to access your profile.
2. Tap on the Settings button at the top right, usually represented by three horizontal lines or dots.
3. Tap on “See more in Accounts Center” to access settings related to your account.
4. Under the Account settings, select “Your information and permissions.”
5. Tap “Your activity Off Meta technologies” to view and control how your data is used.
6. Tap “Recent activity” and enter your password to see what apps and websites have sent info to Facebook recently.
7. From there, you can select individual websites to block from sharing data to Facebook. Just tap the website’s name and the Disconnect button at the top.
7. To delete all previous sharing activity between websites and apps, tap Clear previous activity.
6. If you want to customize which apps share data with Facebook, tap “Manage future activity” to adjust settings according to your preferences.
8. On the next page, select “Disconnect future activity” to enable it, then tap the “Continue” button at the bottom.
Once you clear the activity managed by the tool, Facebook will remove the identifying information the apps and websites share about you.
This means the Meta apps will no longer know which websites you visited or what you looked at, so you won’t see targeted ads from those sites.
If you have any questions or concerns, leave a comment below.
Thanks for the information. Hopefully now when I am doing searches they will not show up on my wife’s facebook ads. Facebook has ruined many surprises I had planned.
You’re welcome, Mick! Glad I could help.