ZDNETFacebook has not been making friends lately with its policy changes. While some people have left, others find it hard to leave. It’s where their friends and social groups — from old co-workers to church members to fellow sufferers of obscure diseases — are. Also: The best data removal services in 2025: Delete yourself from the internetIn addition, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, tracks your activity not just on Facebook, but across the internet with Meta’s tracking pixel. If you’d rather not have Big Zucker looking over your shoulder, here’s what you can do to limit how much Meta can track you.Facebook has been collecting data on you for yearsBefore getting into protecting your privacy, you should know what data Facebook has already been collecting data on you for years. Besides the obvious — your name and that you liked Aunt Jodie’s funny cat picture — companies that use Facebook Business Tools, such as Facebook Pixel, the Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK), and Facebook Login and Account Kit, also share what they know about you with Facebook. Specifically, Meta tracks when you’re:Opening an appLogging into an app with FacebookViewing contentSearching for an itemAdding an item to a shopping cartMaking a purchaseMaking a donationWhen you’ve been naughty or niceOK, I made up the last one, but when you use Facebook, you really are giving up your privacy in ways that would make Santa Claus envious. Don’t believe it? According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Facebook tracks you on 30% of the top 10,000 websites. On my own account, I see that Facebook and its partners have data on me from 955 apps and websites that I’ve used or visited in the last 180 days. That includes every time I checked my Ring doorbell, the time I checked StubHub for WVU-Kansas basketball tickets, and how often I checked into Zillow when searching for a new home. And, of course, what sites I visit daily.Also: What is DuckDuckGo? If you’re into online privacy, try this popular Google alternativeAlso keep in mind that things that sound like they help, such as clearing your Facebook history, may not help at all. Clearing your history, for example, doesn’t delete anything. Instead, all it does is disconnect your activity history from your account. Meta will continue to receive your activity from the businesses and organizations you visit in the future.The only real way out is to delete your Facebook account. But even then, Facebook says it will take up to 90 days to remove all your data. It may take longer. Much longer. In any case, Meta doesn’t spell out what it does with your activity history.What doesn’t work You can turn off, sort of, the data Facebook and its partners share about you. But, even then, Facebook says: “We’ll still receive activity from whatever site. It may be used to measure and improve their ads, but it will be disconnected from your account.” (You can believe Facebook if you like, but I’m inclined to doubt it.)Next, simply putting a post on your page that claims to be a legal notice forbidding Meta from using your personal data and photos won’t help you a bit. No, I don’t care who told you that this would work. It doesn’t. Never has, never will.Also: Stop exposing your Venmo activity – by changing this privacy setting. Here’s whySo, what can you do? Well, first things first. Facebook has a bad habit of changing its menus. If the specific suggestions below don’t work for you, use the Facebook search function to find the settings you’re looking for.Don’t share public posts – it’s dangerous More
