Facebook unveils tool to give users more control over data

Facebook unveiled a tool on the web site.

The new measures, which will only be available in Ireland, Spain and South Korea, will be available to the web. That will reduce companies' ability to target them specifically on Facebook, but the company will continue to offer third-party companies as part of its advertising products.

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"Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer, and David Baser, the company's director of product management," said in a blog post. "We'll be using Facebook, Instagram or Messenger."

Facebook declined to say when users outside of Ireland, Spain and South Korea would be able to use its new product, known as off-Facebook Activity.

The announcement – which comes almost 18 months after Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, first discussed the plans – is part of the company's efforts to win back the rest of the scandals, including the misuse of users' data by Cambridge Analytica, the political data analytics firm, and the recent disclosure that third-party contractors had listened to people's audio chats on Facebook's platform.

In July, the Federal Trade Commission announced a $ 5 billion settlement with the company for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and other regulators worldwide have similarly targeted the social network for both privacy and antitrust concerns.

Websites and smartphone apps rely on Facebook, including embedding the company's "like" button on their pages. Such data is then used to target users with advertising on Facebook's various platforms.

To disconnect from this online footprint – which is also linked to a third party portal anonymous on non-Facebook sites. People can also allow companies to continue sharing data with the social network.

Facebook is expected to prompt users when their service is in their countries to determine how their data is shared between third-party companies and the social network.

The internet will be used by the internet, and will continue to be used by the Internet.

If a person decides to opt out of the data-sharing program, the person will still see ads on Facebook, but these will not be specifically targeted to that person's interests.

"We expect this impact on our business, but we believe it is more important," the Facebook executives said in the blog post.

This report first appeared on politico.eu on Aug. 20, 2019.