While the world tries to decide whether political advertising should be allowed on Facebook, the company has quietly chosen Ireland to try out a new privacy feature over almost all ads.
‘Off Facebook Activity’ will let you cut off advertisers from your Facebook identity, either individually or in total.
The idea is to address a problem that came into sharp focus in the Cambridge Analytica scandal -- what happens to your personal data outside your Facebook sessions?
The new Off Facebook Activity tool will show you the apps and websites that connect to your Facebook profile, usually for the purposes of advertising, and will let you wipe that slate clean. You can then choose not to let Facebook use your general browsing activity to show you personalised ads.
Will people use this tool, or just ignore it as they do for many of the privacy settings that services such as Facebook introduce?
That’s a question that Adrian puts to David Baser, a senior product director at Facebook responsible for the new Off Facebook Activity tool.
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