Did you know that other websites give Facebook information about what you do when you make purchases or visit their websites? This enables Facebook to target ads and posts that mesh with your interest.
That’s why sometimes if you go shopping for shoes at another site, your Facebook page is suddenly filled with shoe ads. Or if you search for low-carb cookies recipes on a food site, your feed will fill with low-carb suggestions. Here’s how to find out which companies are telling Facebook what you’re up to online. Start by opening Facebook and clicking on the little arrow button at the far right. Choose Settings & Privacy from the drop-down menu.
Click on Privacy Shortcuts.
Click on Your Facebook Information.
Choose View or clear your Facebook activity.
Already I can see that my pedometer app on my phone and several other websites, including WordPress, the company that I pay to host this website, have shared information with Facebook.
To the right of that information is What you can do. I’m going to click on More options, to see everything you can do about the information.
We’ll start with Manage Your Off-Facebook Activity. It really blew me away that 1,243 apps and websites have shared my information with Facebook.
Every news site I visited, nearly every app I use, even government websites like the Ohio Imagination library and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Click on any of the sites or apps to get more details about what information they shared and why.
You can click on each individual site to turn off any future sharing of your information and to also give feedback about how you feel about that sharing.
Click Clear History at the top to clear the list.
I use DuckDuckGo as my search engine and I’m not tracked.
Unfortunately Connie, it wouldn’t matter which search engine you used n this case. The websites themselves are sharing the information with Facebook not some third-party tracker.
All of which is part of why I quit FB. As did Stephen King, btw.