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Meta Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds (theverge.com) 51

Posted by BeauHD from the thanks-but-no-thanks dept.
Meta says it will expand how it uses off-platform activity shared by other businesses to personalize Facebook and Instagram feeds as well as AI responses, not just ads. The change starts in July and can be disabled through the "Activity from other businesses" setting, though Meta says it is not collecting new data as part of the update. The Verge reports: For example, Meta says if you bought a tent online recently, you might see camping-related videos in your Reels feed. "We aren't collecting any new data as part of this update," the blog post says. "This is about using information that businesses already send to us to further improve your experience."

Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez tells The Verge that the company previously only used the activity across its apps, such as likes, views, and follows, to tailor the content you see. The company also started using conversations with its AI assistant to personalize ads last year.
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Meta Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds More

Meta Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds

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  • Title Correction: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:04PM (#66182624) Journal

    Meta[stasize] Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds

    "Privacy Rapist Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds"

    There FTFY.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Mod parent Funny (and basically the expected joke), but based on recent books about Facebook, I'm not understanding what part of this story is supposed to be news in the sense of "new".

      The thing about "opt-out" is that almost no one will bother, but Zuck can always say "It's your own fault for not figuring it out."

      If this were really a personal attack, then I'd use his real nickname, but I don't know Zuck from Adam. And if I were an "effective" writer, then I'd be better at coining memes. (Latest idea along

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sebby ( 238625 )

        Mod parent Funny (and basically the expected joke),

        Joke? What joke? This is a legitimate correction.

        • Hmm... Well as a correction I don't feel like it goes far enough. It's not to personalize your feeds. It's to addict you and waste as much of your time as possible. The drug dealers are always after fresh victims, along the lines of my mutated Subject.

          Many of those books talked about the free data services Facebook pushed in places like Myanmar. If you're tracking the news you already know what can go wrong.

      • (Latest idea along such lines versus Rumplicans versus Dumbocrats

        Rape-publicans

      • The thing about "opt-out" is that almost no one will bother, but Zuck can always say "It's your own fault for not figuring it out."

        “But the plans were on display”
        “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
        “That’s the display department.”
        “With a flashlight.”
        “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
        “So had the stairs.”
        “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
        “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the do

  • So Creepy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:05PM (#66182626)

    So creepy that they can do this. I've never used Facebook or anything associated with it. How do I do it? Easy? I just imagine Zuckerberg rummaging through my underwear drawer for personal info. Ewwww..... He's the ultimate creep.

    • You can't (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:19PM (#66182656)

      They're not just sitting behind the bushes outside your house fapping away to every piece of data they harvested, they planted the bushes in the first place.

    • Like to see him try it with Javascript disabled, cookies allowed only from a whitelist, and using Dillo and Elinks, my main two browsers. Give it your best shot, Zuck. I've never had a Facebook account.

    • Honestly, I thought they were already doing this - I thought that was what they used all those "click to like us on facebook" buttons were for...?

      Either way, many moons ago, I put a blocker in /etc/hosts. I can't claim it's 100% perfect, but it seems to stop the worst of it. Something like this: https://gist.github.com/djaiss... [github.com] (although others exist and are a bit better maintained).

      For those who don't have an SO addicted to Facebook, you could use a pi hole to do the same sort of thing, I guess...?

    • The first thing I ever hated about Fakebook was that they refused to provide an option in the settings to disable their "Friends Recommendations". I neither need nor want anybody telling me who I should, or might want to, "befriend"

  • ... Meta[stasize] spokesperson Emil Vazquez tells...

    Its name is Evil Vazquez

  • So... (Score:3)

    by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:18PM (#66182650)

    Nothing has changed?

    • Yes, I was assuming they've been doing this since day 1 of selling advertisement. I'm assuming this is targeted towards advertisers, trying to make them think the ads are better targeted now, thus justifying a price increase.

      • They've explicitly said the advertisers already had access to this, this is just for the rest of the site to catch up.

        I see the reason that they weren't already doing it is that it might creep out the users. The "speak a product's name and the ad pops up on your phone" thing does a number on people. I assume they were trying to avoid that effect, but now they've calculated the extra engagement is worth it.

        Also, it may be that people are posting less on Facebook in general, so there's less fresh data there,

  • And that's good because...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RUs1729 ( 10049396 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:31PM (#66182690)
    I understand why they are doing it. Trying to spin it as a good thing for users amounts to adding insult to injury.
    • Meta has run out of new ways to monetize information they're collecting from their own apps, so they're branching out into collecting all your activity across the net to give them new information they can aggregate, process, and sell.
  • For whoever still uses that POS site for 150 year-olds. Don't use that POS site. Avoid their other POS'esses WhatsDumbFapp and InstaFart as much as you can.

  • If this actually worked as advertised... (Score:3)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @02:33PM (#66182698)

    ...it might be a bit useful
    I expect it will be just more slop to avoid.
    I would actually like good personalized advertising and recommendations, but only if they were good.

    • I would actually like good personalized advertising and recommendations, but only if they were good.

      You are their target audience.

    • I would argue that it can not be good, without facebook somehow knowing how you felt about what you were looking at on line. When you read an article discussing AI, are you doing that because you love AI, you're invested in AI stocks, you hate AI, you use AI in your job, AI took your job, the image with the headline was interesting, or maybe just random click. Thats hard for it to figure out, so it might just send you all the AI things in your feed to see how you respond.

    • I would actually like good personalized advertising and recommendations, but only if they were good.

      It's not about different or "good" ads. It's about modelling your profile so they know how much they can (over) charge you for the products and services advertised. It's about collecting more information then selling it to e.g your insurance company, so they can overcharge you for insurance on the basis that you spent too much time in the McDonalds app, browsing recipes for donuts or searching for trousers with a larger waist and information about chest pains.

  • Spin up a LIVE based VM, with one of the more secure browsers. Then when you're done, all the cookies are poof ... gone.

    This bypasses almost all forms of tracking/fingerprinting browsing systems.

    Also, why can't hackers figure out how to poison cookies?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sebby ( 238625 )

      Also, why can't hackers figure out how to poison cookies?

      There's probably some extension for that.

  • "to further improve your experience."

    • "to further improve your experience."

      You need to read between the words:

      "to further improve your [privacy raping] experience."

      And yes, "improve" most certainly has a different definition for Fucktardberg and all its privacy raping minions.

  • Evil bastards.

  • Good luck (Score:3)

    by battingly ( 5065477 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @03:23PM (#66182770)

    Good luck trying to find that "Activity from other businesses" setting. It's pretty much impossible to find. That's by design, no doubt.

    • Even if you turn it off, they still have all your data. "Disable" means they just hide it from you now.

      Same as every privacy setting they have.

  • Food, meat flavored (Score:3)

    by toxonix ( 1793960 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @03:51PM (#66182804)

    I couldn't possibly enjoy my Insta or Facebook feed any more.. Mmm, mm, mm.
    I do not have either, is why.

    "If you bought tent online recently, you might see camping-related videos in your Reels feed"
    I don't understand this one. I blew my load on the tent. I don't need more tent porn. I'll just end up getting sick and tired of tents.

  • Hard to personalize feeds for an account that never logs in to read those feeds.

    I hope they spend lots of money to do this for lots of dead accounts.

  • then so can any other company or entity or government.

    To most of us nerds, we don't use social media anyway, so who cares. But this is essentially proof of concept to show how it can (is) be done by other entities that we can't avoid. Like credit bureaus. Governments. Spy agencies. Data brokers. Hackers.

    This needs to be regulated and something you can block at the personal level across all devices and should be opt-out by default.

  • If I buy a washing machine, I get hundreds of washing machine ads, in case I'm a laundromat, I guess.

    Ditto for all those people who have a dozen tents.

  • "starts in July" and "can be disabled " figures they would not make utilizing their wide spread past and continuing surveillance opt-in. That proves their continuing bad intentions.

  • Sorta reminds me of universal default (Score:3)

    by hwstar ( 35834 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @05:54PM (#66183066)

    From wikipedia:

    Universal default is a now-banned practice in the United States financial services industry whereby a creditor would change the terms of a loan from the normal terms to the default terms (i.e. the terms and rates given to those who have missed payments on a loan) when that lender is informed that their customer has defaulted with another unrelated lender, even though the customer has not defaulted with the first lender.[1]

    In order words:
    "Pray I don't alter it further" - Darth Vader

    So what you do elsewhere affects what Facebook is going to do to you... Think about that for a moment.

    Facebook is acting like you're chained to a Flouroscope table getting a full body search against your will. (Apologies to the "Stainless Steel Rat")

    Never been a Facebook user, and never will.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hwstar ( 35834 )

      Oh, and one more thing: If Facebook had to default things like this off, then maybe they would have to switch to a membership dues model, because after all you are the product.

  • so I do my BEST to contain Meta. I use a separate browser on my desktop just for FB, and don't use the browser for anything else. Same on my phone. No FB app, No Messages app. Not perfect, but at least I feel like I'm doing something.

  • True Story from Last Year (Score:3)

    by crunchygranola ( 1954152 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @08:00PM (#66183238)

    I have a FB account that I only use to access content (club activities for example) not available from elsewhere. So I have never posted on it.

    Last year my medical care provider set me up with an outside care provider, who sent me a link to a HIPAA compliant confidential on-line appointment via text message. So the only connections I had with this person where in my medical care providers data bases, the text message link on my iPhone, and my actual video appointment.

    The next day I logged on to FB to check on something and it suggested my outside care provider as a "friend" to connect to.

    Somehow FB is penetrating HIPAA protected medical information.

  • "Meta Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds"

    No they won't, because I don't use facebook, meta, whatsapp, etc etc etc.

  • Hahaha (Score:2)

    by Teun ( 17872 )
    Hahaha, anyone surprised?
  • I really would like to understand how it is to 'improve your experience' the fact of seeing 'relevant' ads while using apps. I always disable everything related to this.

  • I did a long time ago and do not miss it at all. Google, meta, X, etc are based around tracking and monetizing you. Thats their purpose.

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