How to Block Targeted Ads on Facebook

Last week, Facebook, Inc. This time around, the company says that it wants to offer the service to Facebook users around the world with the Advert Preferences page.

Users can opt out of interest-based advertising (though not all advertising altogether) through the ad settings page.

Facebook has this week stepped up efforts to make a buck off its 1.5 billion monthly active users. Since its inception, the company has been gathering users’ activity logs, and now it will also monitor users’ internet activity beyond the confines of Facebook.

To turn targeted ads in your Facebook account on or off across all devices, follow the prompts in the Privacy Shortcuts menu at the top right of the Facebook desktop app, or bottom right-hand corner of the mobile app. Click Privacy Shortcuts More Settings Adverts. Facebook is developing the feature further by using information it has gotten from the like and share habits of its users.

However, using likes and shares for advertising is new, although Facebook has been logging the data for years.

Such a response did not resonate well with the Belgian data protection authority which subsequently took the company to court over its alleged “trampling” of Belgian and European privacy laws.

A “like” says a lot about a user’s choice, not only in products but also about religious or political views.

Facebook will now be using data from its “Like button and similar social features” in its interest-based ads, the social network giant has announced. “Facebook only promises to no longer use this information for the purposes of interest-based advertising”, Van Alsenoy added.

Before, people could block the ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s AdChoices program, or through settings on Android and iOS phones.

Ads on Facebook, regardless of whether you are using the Web version or an application, are controlled in the preferences.

You just have to go on over to your Facebook Settings page and toggle off what options you’d like to steer clear of. “Again, the aim is to show people things they most want to see-ad or not”.

The social network disputed the claims, saying that the report did not understand Facebook’s use of data.

Last week, we reported that Facebook plans to roll out a button similar to the Like button that expresses emotions.