{"id":47024,"date":"2019-08-23T21:05:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T19:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=47024"},"modified":"2019-08-23T21:06:08","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T19:06:08","slug":"facebook-unveils-clear-history-feature-giving-users-more-control-over-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2019\/08\/facebook-unveils-clear-history-feature-giving-users-more-control-over-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook unveils ‘Clear History’ feature, giving users more control over data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Facebook is rolling out a \u201cClear History\u201d feature that will allow users to disconnect their accounts from data collected from third-party websites and apps,\u00a0according to The Verge<\/a>.<\/em> The move comes following several delays, more than a year after CEO Mark Zuckerberg first announced plans for the feature at Facebook\u2019s 2018 developer conference, in the wake of\u00a0the Cambridge Analytica revelations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for now, the feature only be available to users in Ireland, Spain, and South Korea, in advance of a global launch \u201cover the coming months.\u201d

Many apps and websites track user activity across the web, sending reports back to Facebook that the company uses to target ads. A wide range of sites and apps use digital tools such as Facebook Pixel and Login with Facebook to collect this data and send it to Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new function called \u201cOff-Facebook Activity\u201d will allow users to keep track of this data, and the Clear History feature will disconnect it from a user\u2019s account, while stopping short of deleting it entirely. Users will also be given the option to block companies from sending such data to Facebook in the future. Blocking this feature entirely will disable the Login with Facebook option for other websites.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company\u00a0has explained<\/a> that even though the data won\u2019t be deleted, they opted to call the feature \u201cClear History\u201d so that users would associate it with tools they already understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stephanie Max, a project manager at the company, the name was chosen so \u201cpeople were able to mentally connect that with how their browser controls work, where they can clear their history. We clearly state that \u2026 the information isn\u2019t connected to your account.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Max noted that the move could hurt Facebook\u2019s advertising revenue, since the tracking feature is so important to offering the company\u2019s highly targeted advertising. As the first company to provide such a feature, Max says Facebook is hoping to \u201cstart a broader conversation around this particular practice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature was originally set to come online last year. In a blog post Tuesday, the company explained that it had needed new ways of processing and storing data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur engineering teams redesigned our systems and built a new way for them to process information. We also conducted months of research to get input from people, privacy advocates, policymakers, advertisers and industry groups. We made important changes in response to what we learned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image by Con Karampelas<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook is rolling out a \u201cClear History\u201d feature that will allow users to disconnect their accounts from data collected from third-party websites and apps,\u00a0according to The Verge. The move comes following several delays, more than a year after CEO Mark Zuckerberg first announced plans for the feature at Facebook\u2019s 2018 developer conference, in the wake<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":47026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[1685,140,4485,10214],"class_list":["post-47024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-finance","tag-data-protection","tag-facebook","tag-facebook-ads","tag-user-data"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}