Tired of creepy ad suggestions crowding your timeline? Want to protect your privacy and improve your level of online security? Here’s how you can stop Facebook (and everyone else) from tracking you!
By now we’ve all heard of how companies track our activity while we browse. Nearly every site you come across while on the web will be using trackers to monitor your activity and store your data. Whether it’s cookies, account tracking, or browser fingerprinting, sites are using something to peer through your online windows and get a peep at what you’re doing.
Social media platforms are especially notorious for tracking their users’ activities so that they can recommend pages, products, and even people to them. And sure, sometimes it’s nice to see an ad for the shirts or shoes you were thinking about buying earlier, but do you really want a site to know everything about you? Probably not. Which is why it’s vital to be proactive in protecting yourself online. Because, if you’re not, companies will continue to take advantage of your privacy for their own means.
Do social media sites track me?
All sites track you. This article is an excellent illustration of the extent to which you’ll be tracked online if you don’t take the proper precautions. The sad truth is that if you don’t protect yourself, the amount of privacy you’ll have on the internet will be shockingly low. And although every site is guilty of internet snooping, certain companies take things to an especially creepy level.
The ever popular social media platform Facebook is particularly egregious in their tracking. Not only do they monitor your activity to better suggest purchases, they monitor your location, and they collect data when you “login with Facebook” on other sites. And they even know what you’re doing online when you’re not using the app! Yeah, pretty unsettling right? Facebook can monitor virtually everything you do online, and there are very few laws which prevent them from doing so. So, here’s how you can immediately stop Facebook from tracking you.
How To Stop Facebook From Tracking You
Since they track you in so many different ways, Facebook’s privacy settings are extensive and confusing! To fully customize each of your privacy settings, you’ll need to go to the Profile and Tagging page which can be reached from the top right corner of your profile page:
And here are some more in depth instructions on how to stop some of Facebook’s most invasive privacy violations:
Here’s how to limit data collection from Facebook and their partners:
- Click the down arrow in the top right of the Facebook home page > Settings & Privacy > Settings > Apps and Websites > Active > Click on the box next to the app’s name > Remove.
Here’s how to prevent Facebook from tracking your location:
- Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Facebook. Then click either “While Using the App” or “Never.”
Here’s how to stop Facebook from tracking your activity on other sites and apps!
- To clear the data Facebook has already stored: Click the down arrow in the top right of the Facebook home page > Settings & Privacy > Privacy Shortcuts > View or clear your off-Facebook activity.
- To prevent future tracking efforts: Toggle the “Future Off-Facebook Activity” button to off.
Staying safe and private on social media
Customizing your privacy settings and turning off Facebook’s ability to track you is an important first step towards improved online privacy. However, that will only serve as a bandaid on the wound that is internet tracking. Frankly, the safest way to maintain privacy while on the web would be to delete Facebook and similar accounts entirely.
Trust us, we get it. Social media is a big part of our lives and we understand not wanting to cut it out entirely. Thankfully, you’re still able to enjoy the perks of social media (and the internet as a whole) and stay protected with the help of Privacy Bee!
Privacy Bee is the top Consumer Privacy Service out there, and with its variety of features, it can help protect you and your loved ones. As we’ve learned, every site is tracking you to some extent; and unfortunately there are very few government regulations protecting you. That means, you need someone fighting for your right to privacy.
That’s where Privacy Bee comes in. With their proactive approach, they allow you to control the flow of your data and customize your privacy preferences while you surf the web. You get to choose which companies you trust and which you don’t. Meaning that you’re no longer at the mercy of every site you happen to visit.
Check out Privacy Bee’s 100% free privacy evaluation to get started on improving your digital defenses! From there, Privacy Bee will make it easy for you to customize your privacy preferences so that you and your loved ones can surf the web worry-free. With Privacy Bee’s services, you can learn how to permanently plug your privacy leaks!
