Facebook Now Monitors Your Browsing History In The App: Here's What It Means For You And How You Can Disable It

Meta Platforms Inc.'s META Facebook has unveiled a new ‘Link History' feature on its iOS and Android apps. The feature tracks your browsing history when you click on links in the Facebook app and is enabled by default.

What Happened: The Facebook app's ‘Link History' feature records the websites a user visits from the app within 30 days.

It’s available on Android and iOS devices and is turned on by default, but users can disable it.

While this could spark privacy concerns, Facebook has clarified that the link history does not capture sites visited during Messenger chats.

According to Facebook’s support page, turning off the link history feature will erase the user’s link history. However, it may take up to 90 days for the complete deletion from Facebook's servers.

See Also: How to Use Google Maps For Live Location Updates On iMessage, WhatsApp, Messenger And More

What It Means For You: This development comes at a time when Facebook recently settled a $725 million data privacy lawsuit. Its peer Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google has also agreed to settle a $5 billion privacy lawsuit, underlining how data privacy has been under increasing focus.

Facebook's decision to make the feature opt-out rather than opt-in could also hamper user privacy.

How To Disable Facebook Link History

Follow these steps to disable Facebook link history:

• Tap any link in the Facebook app.
• When the in-built browser opens the link, tap the three-dot button on the top right.
• Now tap Browser settings and turn off Allow link history.
• Tap Don't allow to confirm.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.