A recent new feature from Facebook is the Facebook Instant Personalization Pilot Program, which acts to personalize your visits to other selected partner websites such as MicrosoftDocs.com, Pandora, and Yelp. This personalization feature will make it so that information is tailored towards you on these external partner websites, based on your “public Facebook information”. But it may be difficult for you to know exactly what information in your Facebook profile is public (i.e. your Facebook Friends list).
To get greater control over your online privacy in relation to Facebook, you may choose to opt-out of this program. If you do not want this feature activated, then you can disable it through the Facebook Privacy Settings, using the steps shown here.
Update: Facebook recently changed their privacy setting layout. New and slightly different instructions for Facebook’s “Improved Privacy Controls” are here.
How To Turn Off The Facebook Instant Personalization Pilot Program
- Under Facebook’s Privacy Settings, select “Applications and Websites“.
- For the “Instant Personalization Pilot Program” select “Edit Setting“.
- Make sure to uncheck the box that will “allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites“.
- You have now opted out of Facebook’s Instant Personalization Pilot Program.