Another day, another story of why everyone should leave Facebook. A woman who hasn’t used the site since 2013 found that, while she forgot about Facebook, Facebook didn’t forget about her. Zuckerberg and company keep tabs on nearly everyone’s online activity through the use of tracking cookies and arrangements with advertisers.
You can opt out of some of this tracking. First, visit this page to see what “off Facebook” activity they know about. To eliminate that, click on the “Clear History” link. Read or ignore the ominous warnings about how your ads will be less interesting and click the “Clear History” button to remove what’s listed. (If you think Facebook actually removes what they know about you, I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn that I’d like to discuss with you.)
But wait, there’s more! This only eliminates what Facebook knows so far. Because they think that business ethics are something that happens to other people, they require another, hidden step to stop them from tracking you in the future. Click the “More Options” link, then “Manage Future Activity”, then the “Manage Future Activity” button in the dialog box that pops up, then finally turn off the toggle switch next to “Future Off-Facebook Activity”. Now they’ll stop tracking you (yeah, right) until they decide to do so again.
Even if you still use Facebook for some reason, you should follow these steps to deny them a small measure of the massive amounts of personal information they are collecting.
