Facebook is honest: launch a tool to find out which other sites get your data

Facebook announced Tuesday a new tool allowing social network users to view, and possibly delete, data that other sites and applications share with the platform to segment the audience of their ads.

The initiative seeks to give people more transparency and control over what the company calls "Activity outside of Facebook", ie personal data derived from the activity. online that are used in the social network to direct advertising.

"If you delete your activity outside of Facebook, we will remove your data identification information that the applications and websites choose to send to us, we will not know which websites you visited or what you have created, and we will not use any of the data that you dissociate to show you Facebook, Instagram or Messenger, "said the company in a statement signed by Erin Egan, Director of Privacy and Policy, and David Baser, Director of Product Management.

"We hope this will have an impact on our business, but we think it's important to let users control their data," he added.

When they visit "Activity outside of Facebook", users view the websites and applications that they use regularly, but they can also access services that they may not recognize. and that could appear for different reasons.

During the presentation of the tool, Facebook explained that to reach the people most likely to pay attention to what they were selling on the screen, "companies often share data on interactions people on their websites with advertising platforms and other services. "

This is the information that can be deleted once the service is active in a process that will start in Ireland, South Korea and Spain and that will progressively reach all countries (for the moment, in Argentina it is not available).