Facebook has launched the much-awaited Clear History Tool globally, as mentioned by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his blog post that talks about giving more control to users over privacy.
The Clear History tool is a part of a new option in settings named Off-Facebook activity. The Off-Facebook activity tool lets the user know which third parties interact with their social network even when they are not using Facebook.
Facebook has stated that various businesses send information to Facebook about the activities of a user on their website and app, based on which the users get relevant ads on Facebook. Through the Off-Facebook Activity Tool, one can get access to that information and remove it from their account.
Previously when the tool was in the talks in 2018, it was to be named as Clear History Tool, but Facebook thought the name might confuse the user. One could mistake it for a tool that removes their published data on the social media platform. The name given to the tool now clearly talks about the type of data that will be discarded like Off-Facebook activity.
The name also separates the data collection processes and data sharing ones. Data collection by the apps is not a significant issue amongst the users, but the sharing of the data and the way apps are failing to protect the data is the root cause why all users wanted a tool like the Off-Facebook activity tool.
It is a well-known fact that users’ data gets sold to support free, ad-supported web, the Off-Facebook activity tool will help them in restricting the use of their data.
As per the report, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal due to which data of around 87-million Facebook users was leaked made the company create a tool through which the user can restrict the use of their data and remove the data from the history.