In this day and age of Facebook being the data behemoth that it is, and with all the news about how it uses, or actually, misuses your precious personal data, it's sometimes refreshing to know that there are ways to have a measure of control over it and only let it track you WHEN YOU SO DECIDE.
Very often webmasters add a way to their websites of tracking your interest. So that when you show interest in a product or post they get to learn about it.
You've been there, you show interest on a particular product and as soon as you go back to Facebook, ads about that product start showing on your Facebook wall.
Not that you can do much about that, since it's their website and their algorithm. But as a marketer, you might want to understand how all this functions and can benefit you, or be in your detriment. So let's talk a bit about the...
Facebook Pixel
This is a little piece of code that gets installed on your computer, mostly without you even knowing about it that tells the sponsor of that post and Facebook that you're interested.
After that, no matter where you go with your browser, you will be followed by ads about that product or company.
That in itself is not bad. Sometimes you are genuinely interested in a software, article or company and would want to know more about it. This Facebook pixel would then help you find them easier again, or let's better say, that they will find you again.
Other times though, YOU WANT TO KEEP CONTROL and decide when you are going to be followed.
Enter "Facebook Container"
This is a special plugin created by Mozilla that works on Firefox and allows you to control how your private data is used by Facebook, or if they ever get access to it.
In order to use it, you need to have Firefox 57 or later installed. After that, it's just a matter of installing the plugin. To do that, just click here and then the "Add to Firefox" button on that page.
As I said above, this gives you a measure of control of your date. However, like in almost everything in life, you'd have to give up some features when using Facebook afterwards.
For instance, you won't be able to use "FACEBOOK LIKE" buttons on third party websites, or logon to websites using your Facebook profile.