How to stop Facebook from tracking your online activity

The world’s largest social network often tracks and shares user information to businesses and third parties. Here’s how you can disable it.

June 17, 2021 12:41 pm | Updated 12:43 pm IST

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Facebook Inc often tracks and shares user information to businesses and third parties for displaying personalised advertisements.

What can Facebook track?

Facebook can track and save information on what websites you have logged in through the social network. It can ask include data shared by marketing agencies and data service providers that analyse customer interactions on their apps and websites.

Other information may include details on post engagements, location, microphone and camera access, and other websites you may have visited through the app.

The tech giant rolled out the ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ feature last year that can prevent it from watching you. Here’s how you can access it.

Resetting Off-Facebook Activity

You can access the feature by clicking on Settings & Privacy > Settings > Off-Facebook Activity under Your Information. Type in your Facebook account password to enter.

A list of websites tracking your activity will be visible. Click on the icons to know more about what they are tracking and to access the list of other websites.

Click on Clear History to clear the list of third-party websites that have shared your information in the past 180 days.

Click on Manage Your Off-Facebook Activity for more information on what websites and interactions are saved.

Click on More Options > Manage Future Activity and turn off the feature. This will prevent from additional sites from tracking your activity in the future.

Can Facebook still track you?

The company says turning off tracking will not reduce the number of ads shown on the app. However, the ads will not be tailored to your liking as the app will no longer be able to track your engagement on websites, posts, and other off-Facebook activity.

Clearing history may also log you out of apps and websites. You can use still Facebook to log back in.

You may also be selective about what website can track you by updating your ad preferences. Facebook will show ads related to only those sites and apps that you have enabled.

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