If you want to find how not to share your browsing activities with Facebook, you should read this article.
The Ads
As you probably know, Facebook collects data on user’s browsing activities, which help it present each user with targeted ads. This not only helps Facebook increase revenue, but also advertisers. If a user sees an ad they are interested in, they will click the link and possibly purchase the advertising product. However, not everybody is okay with the idea of their web activities being tracked by Facebook, they just like keeping the things they do to themselves.
How to Opt-out of the Data Collection
Unlike other privacy settings for Facebook, this one you will not find on its website. After all, Facebook relies very heavily on ads, and if it can deliver targeted ads to more users, then advertisers will be more willing to use its services, and thus Facebook will earn more in revenue. This means that you will have to go to the Digital Advertising Alliance web page. Before doing that, make sure that you do not use any software such as AdBlocker Plus as you will need to have cookies enabled for this to work.
First, while on the All Participating Companies tab, find Facebook and select it. You can also select any other companies that you do not want to collect your information. Then click on Submit your Choices and you are done. Or you can click on the Choose all companies button if you are a real privacy freak.
Mobile Devices
Facebook also collects data from your browsing on your mobile devices. So you might want to make sure that you check your privacy settings for those too.
- For iOS:
Go to the Privacy section > General>Restrictions>Advertising>Limit Ad Tracking - For Android:
Google Settings>Ads>Opt Out of Interest-Based Ads
Downsides
There are a few things that you should keep in mind when doing this. One is that you have to do the same procedure on all browsers that you plan on using, and on all devices too. Otherwise, Facebook can collect the data it needs, and display relevant ads to you anyway. Another is that whenever you clear your cookies, you will have to go to the Digital Advertising Alliance website and do the whole process all over again. There are some extensions offered for Google Chrome that can save these settings. Also, if you reset your mobile device, you will have to make the changes to its settings again.
In the end, you have to keep in mind that Facebook has a very rigorous process to decide what websites it will advertise. So, it is highly unlikely that you will land on a malicious web page when clicking a Facebook ad. However, if you are so into keeping your browsing as private as possible, then you should consider following our advice. It is a really simple method, and all though you may have to perform the process often, it will only take a couple of minutes at most.