6/25/2023 0 Comments Manage apps on facebookIt’s rolling out today to users worldwide. The company says the launch of the Off-Facebook Activity tool has taken this long to arrive because Facebook had to rebuild some of its systems to make it possible. Since then, the company has been working on improved privacy controls and tools to offer more clarity and user control over its data collection and sharing practices. This feature’s existence is a direct result of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, which compromised the data of up to 87 million Facebook users by way of a Facebook app. And finally, it warns you that clearing history will log out of dozens of apps and won’t prevent you from seeing ads - warnings obviously intended to get users to reconsider. ![]() The “clear history” button doesn’t stop the third-parties from future data-sharing - that’s a whole different section. It also requires Facebook users to enter their password again to view this tool, even if they’re currently logged in. The feature is complicated - it would not be surprising to see hundreds of sites and apps in your list of apps and sites sharing data with Facebook. (To get the third-party to delete whatever data it has collected on you, you’ll still need to follow its own procedures to delete your account or clear your data there.) You can then choose to break the third-party’s connection to Facebook. The Off-Facebook Activity tool will offer a clear summary of which apps and sites have collected data, how Facebook received the information, how many interactions (logging in, searching, purchases, etc.) it has received and more. And this is also difficult on mobile, as people with smartphones now have more than 80 installed apps and use around 40 of them monthly. Users, meanwhile, aren’t able to keep up with which apps and sites are sharing data or what that data includes, because it’s not just one or two - it’s nearly everything. ![]() But, in addition to Facebook’s powerful and granular ad-targeting capabilities, it’s also benefiting from other businesses that are sharing the data they’ve collected through their own apps with Facebook. Most people don’t understand the intricacies of how the ad-supported web works, which is why they assume Facebook is listening in through their smartphone’s microphone to target them with those frighteningly accurate ads. With the new Off-Facebook Activity tool, you can see a summary of that information and clear it from your account. If the apps were careful to protect the data they collected and kept it to themselves, users wouldn’t mind as much - but instead, users’ data is brokered and sold to support the free, ad-supported web.Īs Facebook explains today, other businesses send Facebook information about your activity on their sites and apps, which Facebook then uses to show you relevant ads. But data collection isn’t the real issue. The name also puts more distance between the data collection processes and the data-sharing bit. The new name is meant to better clarify what kind of data is getting deleted - “Off-Facebook Activity.” ![]() When the tool was initially announced in 2018, it had a much more user-friendly name - “Clear History.” But Facebook believed that could confuse users who may think that the tool had something to do with wiping out their Facebook data published to the social network itself. The feature was first introduced in 2018 at Facebook’s annual developer conference, but only launched to users in select geographies last year. ![]() Facebook is making available to all users worldwide its “Off-Facebook Activity” tool, which allows users to manage and delete the data that third-party websites and apps share with Facebook.
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