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Start in Facebook’s Settings and Accounts Center, then look for Activity from other businesses. Meta announced in June 2026 that it was replacing the older Your activity off Meta technologies control with an expanded setting that governs how Meta uses activity businesses have already shared for ad and content personalization. The rollout is phased, so the name, location or availability can differ by account and country.
This setting can reduce how Meta uses off-site activity for personalization. It is not a universal tracker blocker, does not erase records held by the websites or apps where you acted, and should not be treated as a guarantee that no information is transmitted to Meta.
What changed in Facebook’s off-site activity controls
Meta’s June 2026 announcement said the control called Your activity off Meta technologies would be retired while Meta expanded Activity from other businesses. The older control was designed around reviewing activity that businesses shared, clearing activity associated with an account and disconnecting future activity. Meta’s replacement is described primarily as a choice about whether Meta uses activity already shared by businesses to personalize ads and other content.
Meta says the expanded setting can affect recommendations in Feed and responses from its AI features in addition to advertising. Its examples of shared activity include games played and purchases made on other websites. Meta also states, “We aren’t collecting any new data as part of this update.” That is Meta’s description of this change, not an independent finding that all forms of data collection have stopped.
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Meta said the change would begin in the United States and a number of other countries the month after the June announcement, with additional countries following. The announcement did not publish a complete country list or a final schedule. In October 2026, you therefore need to check your own Accounts Center rather than assume that a control shown to another person is available to you.
How to find the current setting
The exact clicks can vary because Meta is rolling the control out in stages and periodically changes its settings layout. Use the following route as a guide, then follow the labels displayed for your account.
- Sign in to Facebook using the account whose off-site activity you want to manage.
- Open Facebook’s Settings.
- Open Accounts Center. Accounts Center settings have historically been reachable from Facebook, Instagram and Messenger settings, although the entry point and screen design can differ.
- Search the Accounts Center settings for Activity from other businesses. If a privacy or activity section is shown, inspect it for that exact name or a closely related description.
- Read the explanation on the screen before changing the control. It should describe how activity that businesses share with Meta may be used for personalized ads and other content.
- Choose the available option that limits Meta’s use of that shared activity, then complete any confirmation prompt.
- Return to the setting later to verify that your choice was saved. Record the date and, if useful, take a screenshot for your own records; Meta can change labels as the rollout continues.
Do not rely on an old instruction that tells you to find Disconnect future activity as though it were a current, worldwide toggle. That wording belongs to the former tool and may no longer appear, or may behave differently, after the 2026 transition.
If you cannot see Activity from other businesses
Missing controls do not necessarily mean that you overlooked a menu. Meta said availability is phased and did not publish a complete schedule. A feature may therefore be unavailable in your market, absent from a particular account while the rollout is in progress, or displayed under a revised label.
- Update the Facebook app or use a current desktop browser, then reopen Settings and Accounts Center.
- Use the Accounts Center search function if one is provided instead of guessing through every privacy page.
- Check the setting from the account you actually use; controls can be account-specific.
- Search Meta’s current Help Center for Activity from other businesses and compare the instructions with the labels on your screen.
- If Meta’s help page asks you to log in, sign in first. Help content and available controls can be restricted until Meta identifies your account and region.
A different label or an absent toggle is not evidence that Facebook has stopped receiving information from other businesses. It only tells you that the replacement control is not currently exposed to you in the way described.
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What the setting controls—and what it does not
| Question | What the 2026 setting addresses | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| What information is covered? | Activity that businesses have already shared with Meta, such as activity on other websites or apps. | It does not give you control over every record the outside business keeps about you. |
| What is the decision? | Whether Meta uses the shared activity for personalized ads and, under the expanded description, other content such as Feed recommendations and AI responses. | It is not a promise that no data is sent to Meta or that every use of information is disabled. |
| Does it delete the original record? | No deletion of a business’s own records is described by this account setting. | Turning the control off should not be represented as erasing your purchase, game or browsing record at the originating service. |
| Does it stop collection by the outside site? | No. The setting concerns Meta’s use of activity businesses share. | It does not disable the website’s analytics, advertising systems, account logs or other first-party processing. |
| Is it a complete tracking blocker? | No. It is an account-level use and personalization control. | It is not equivalent to blocking cookies, scripts, pixels, mobile identifiers or all cross-site data flows. |
How activity can reach Meta from other websites and apps
Meta’s earlier explanations described businesses sending information through tools such as the Facebook Pixel and Facebook Login. A Pixel can report events from a website, while Facebook Login connects activity with an interaction in which you use a Facebook account to sign in. Other integrations can send events such as a page view, product interaction, registration or purchase.
The practical implication is important: the Accounts Center choice is about what Meta does with information that has been shared. It is not a command issued to every outside business to stop collecting data, and it does not rewrite that business’s privacy policy. A site may still retain its own account, order, fraud-prevention and analytics records even when Meta’s personalization use is limited.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteWhether an event is associated with a particular Facebook account can depend on the identifiers and signals supplied by the business and Meta. The available setting cannot be described as a technical guarantee that all identifiers are severed in every circumstance.
Former control versus the replacement
| Control | Status | Functions described by Meta | How to treat it now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your activity off Meta technologies | Meta announced that it would be retired as the new approach rolled out. | The 2019-era description let people review a summary, clear activity from the account and disconnect future activity. | Use as historical background only; do not assume the old disconnect path remains universally available. |
| Activity from other businesses | Expanded replacement announced in June 2026, with phased availability. | Controls Meta’s use of activity businesses already share for personalized ads and other content, according to Meta. | Look for this name in the current Accounts Center and read the account-specific explanation. |
The two controls are not competing products. They represent a change in scope and emphasis: the former interface centered on reviewing, clearing and disconnecting shared activity, while the announced replacement centers on Meta’s personalization use. Neither description gives you a universal way to delete data held by every business involved.
What happens after you change the setting
Meta’s announcement describes the effect in terms of personalization. You may see different ad or content recommendations because activity shared by businesses is no longer used in the same way for those purposes. The setting does not promise an empty or chronologically neutral Facebook experience: Meta can use other information under its policies and other controls to select ads, rank Feed items or generate responses.
Changes can also take time to become visible. Existing recommendations, cached decisions or campaigns may not immediately disappear, and the setting does not retroactively remove records from an outside service. If you need to delete an order, game profile or account history, use the originating business’s own privacy or account tools.
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The Accounts Center control is useful but narrow. For broader privacy protection, handle each data source separately.
Review the websites and apps you use
- Read the privacy notice for services where you shop, play games or sign in with Facebook.
- Look for controls covering advertising partners, analytics, personalised advertising and sale or sharing of information, using the terminology required in your jurisdiction.
- Remove old accounts and app connections that you no longer need, where the service provides that option.
Separate Facebook Login where practical
Facebook Login is one example Meta previously gave of a business integration that can transmit activity. If a service offers an independent sign-in, decide whether moving to it is worth the account-recovery inconvenience. Changing the login method does not erase historical records, but it can reduce future activity tied to that login relationship.
Use browser privacy controls for their own purpose
Browser settings, tracker-blocking extensions and device-level privacy controls may reduce some web requests or identifiers. They are separate from Meta’s account setting, and the available sources do not establish any one tool as a complete substitute for the Accounts Center control or as a guarantee that no business-to-Meta sharing occurs. Check for broken logins, checkout failures and site functionality after enabling stricter blocking.
Manage app permissions and mobile identifiers
On a phone, review the operating system’s advertising and app-permission controls. These controls affect device-level access and identifiers; they do not automatically change a Facebook account setting or delete data already held by an app.
Why this matters: evidence about off-site activity
Two published research results illustrate why people may want to inspect these controls, but neither should be mistaken for a measurement of the 2026 setting.
- A 2022 study by Patricia Arias-Cabarcos, Saina Khalili and Thorsten Strufe exposed 100 participants to Facebook’s off-platform activity dashboard. Participants reported surprise at the amount of data shown and became more likely to take protective measures. This is a sample-specific result about the dashboard studied at that time, not a population estimate.
- The 2022 paper The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Facebook Web Tracking with Invisible Pixels and Click IDs estimated that the technology it examined appeared on 23% of the 10,000 most popular websites in its study. That figure is dated and study-specific; it does not measure present-day Facebook tracking everywhere or every kind of tracking technology.
These findings support checking what is available in your account, while the limitations matter just as much as the headline numbers. A historical dashboard study cannot tell you how the 2026 replacement behaves for every person, and a website sample cannot establish the current prevalence of all Meta-related tracking mechanisms.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Common mistakes and their fixes
Assuming “off Facebook” means all tracking outside Facebook
The phrase is shorthand for activity that other businesses share with Meta. It does not cover every form of data collection by those businesses or every signal Meta may receive through other products.
Expecting the outside business to delete your history
Use the business’s own account, privacy or deletion process for its records. The Facebook setting concerns Meta’s use of shared activity, not the source company’s database.
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Older guides often show Off-Facebook Activity, a review page and a Disconnect future activity control. Meta announced a transition away from that tool in 2026. Treat screenshots as historical context and use the current Accounts Center labels instead.
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Interpreting different ads as proof that tracking stopped
Ad changes can result from many signals, campaign changes or timing. A changed ad is not a technical audit of data transmission, just as seeing a familiar ad is not proof that this one setting was ignored.
Expecting immediate global availability
Meta described a phased rollout and did not publish a complete schedule. If the setting is absent, check again after updates and consult the current Help Center rather than repeatedly changing unrelated privacy options.
A practical privacy checklist
- Open Facebook Settings and Accounts Center.
- Search for Activity from other businesses.
- Read the on-screen description of personalization uses.
- Select the available limiting option and confirm it.
- Record what you changed and when.
- Review privacy controls on websites and apps where you shop, play or sign in.
- Consider separate browser, device and app-permission protections, understanding that each addresses a different layer.
- Recheck after major Facebook interface changes or when you create new third-party accounts.
What you can reasonably expect
The most defensible expectation is narrower than “Facebook will stop tracking me.” The current control can limit Meta’s use of activity that businesses have shared for personalization, if the control is available to your account and you select the limiting option. It cannot guarantee that outside businesses stop collecting information, that no information is transmitted, that Meta has no other data about you, or that another company’s records are deleted.
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Use the control as one layer in a broader privacy routine: reduce unnecessary account connections, review the policies and choices offered by the services you use, and apply browser or device protections where they fit without assuming any one measure blocks every data path.
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