Every once in a while, Facebook makes news for the wrong reasons. And most of it, as one would expect, is generated via its ever-updating privacy policies and rules. While most of them seem justified, others create quite the stir among users. However, the newest tweak to the policies could certainly turn out to be the most controversial one of all times.
Going by what the revised set of rules and policies now stand for, Facebook will now be able to gather data from all your activity, irrespective of whatever website you may be on. With the latest privacy changes, Facebook will monitor all the sites you visit on the Internet, in order to make more money via tailored ads.
Simply put, the change allows the company to gather data from various activities across the internet, aside the normal data it gathers on information the users have added to the site. It also allows the site to later pass on that information to its other branches, including Instagram.
And if you think that the latest change is one of those usual privacy upgradations that keep happening time and again, a recent CraveOnline report explains the situation with the kind of seriousness that it deserves.
"If you want to prevent Facebook from tracking your Internet usage altogether, then you'll have to contact the Digital Advertising Alliance in the US, or its European and Canadian equivalent, which will prevent individual Facebook ad targeting altogether. You can also alter your settings with your mobile device to prevent Facebook tracking you via your smartphone," the report explains.
However, Facebook is of the opinion that the recent changes made to its privacy policies will help the company better in targeting ads to its users. "When we ask people about our ads, one of the top things they tell us is that they want to see ads that are more relevant to their interests," the company said in a statement in June.
If you have been a regular Facebook user and follow up on any sort of news related to the most popular social networking service on the planet, you should also know that the company has been questioned time and again regarding the privacy policies it maintains in coherence with its site.
And we are sure that this latest move to track users, who are visiting other websites, will be seen as something quite intense. However, Facebook remains oblivious to the growing concern by continuing to act like customers actually care about detailed ads, when it's quite clear that the new policies are mainly benefitting the business side of things, rather than personal.
What do you make of the newly tweaked privacy policies imposed for Facebook? Are the new rules too extreme for your taste? Let us know in the comments section below.