Meta announced on Tuesday that it will use information shared by other businesses to personalize users’ feeds and responses from its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, expanding its scope beyond targeted ads.
“Businesses often share information about people’s activity on their sites with us to make ads more relevant,” Meta said in a statement.
“We already use this data – such as the games you play or purchases you make on other websites – to make the ads you see more relevant. In the future, we will use this information to personalize other parts of your experience, including the content you see in your feed and AI responses.”
The social media giant stressed that it is not collecting any new data as part of the update, adding that users are in the driver’s seat and get to decide how this information is used for personalization.
To that end, Meta is streamlining its controls by expanding the “Activity from other businesses” setting (formerly “Activity information from advertising partners”) to better manage how data from other businesses is used for this purpose. The setting “Protect your activity from meta technologies” will be turned off.
“If you allow us to use this data to show you personalized content, the ads and other content you see will be more relevant,” the company said. “For example, if you recently purchased a tent online, you might watch more reels about camping.”
However, if users do not allow it, the content shown will be based on other activity on its platform, such as liking reels or posts. It’s worth pointing out that businesses can also share customer lists with Meta – for example, those who have signed up to receive emails – who are then served relevant ads.
Meta said the new option allows users to manage how data is used to serve both advertising and non-advertising content. The change is expected to take effect next month in the US and several other countries, including the UK, Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Turkey, South Korea, Ecuador, Nigeria and Kenya.
