Facebook will soon share data from tracking users’ activities from third-party sites and apps around the web to enable advertisers to offer better targeted ads.
Facebook has been recording users’ activities through small codes on websites and mobile apps for quite some time now, but now the company says, it will use this data to deliver personalized ads on the social media site.
In a blog post, Facebook said, "Today, we learn about your interests primarily from the things you do on Facebook, such as Pages you like. Starting soon in the US, we will also include information from some of the websites and apps you use. This is a type of interest-based advertising, and many companies already do this."
Industry sources say that Facebook’s USP would be the major share in the universe of sites from where it can collect data as its pieces of code and social plug-ins are embedded across a huge range of websites.
Facebook is offering users the choice to opt out of viewing relevant ads on desktop as well as mobile devices, and specify their own ad preferences.
But they can’t opt out of ads completely. If they remove all their interest categories they will see less relevant ads.
The ad control tool will be rolling out to Facebook users in the US over the next few weeks and will eventually be offered in other countries as well.
