Facebook launches privacy tool to clear your ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ data

Almost a year and a half ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood at the company’s annual developer conference, announcing that the company will begin to let users clear their web browsing history and their connections with Facebook accounts. After a few months of delay, Facebook’s privacy tool, Clear History, is being rolled out to users in Ireland, South Korea, and Spain, and Facebook users in other countries will get the tool in the coming months.

Facebook conceived new tools after the Cambridge Analytica scandal to give users better control over their data privacy at the expense of advertiser positioning. When the user opens it, they will see the tracking user activity and send a report to Facebook on the list of apps and websites for advertising purposes. Clicking on the “Clear History” button will unlink this information from the Facebook account. “Off-Facebook Activity lets you see a summary of the apps and websites that send us information about your activity, and clear this information from your account if you want to,” Facebook says in a post published today.

Users can also choose to prevent these apps and websites from reporting tracking data about users to Facebook in the future. Users can choose to disconnect all non-Facebook browsing data or data for specific applications and websites. Facebook warns that users may see apps and websites they don’t recognize in their account activity.