Facebook to no longer provide third-party data to help advertisers target you

Facebook has announced that it will be shutting down its Partner Categories marketing product as the outcry over the recent data scandal swirls. The social media giant made the announcement in a post on the newsroom page, where it claims the move would "help improve people's privacy."

The Partner Categories platform is powered by third-party data providers such as Epsilon, Acxiom, Experian, and helps the clients to target Facebook users for the promotion of their products.

"These third-party partners collect and model data from a variety of sources, like public records, loyalty card programs, surveys and independent data providers," says Facebook on its Partner Categories page. The company uses this data to enable companies to cater to users who have a credit card.
Facebook also notes that this is a very common practice but it's facing immense pressure to upgrade its security and data privacy of the users. Facebook has no control over how the third party data is collected, this is another reason the company is cutting ties with Partner Categories.

Facebook is facing a lot of criticism after the Cambridge Analytica revelations and then data harvesting claims. Though, Partner Categories isn't responsible for the Cambridge Analytica issue, where the UK-based firm collected user date of 50-million people without consent.

Partner Categories will be "winding down over the next six months," says Facebook.
Recently, three users also decided to drag the company to court. The lawsuit was filed at a federal court in California's Northern District. Facebook is yet to comment on the matter.

Facebook users on Android found out that the social media giant collected their personal data such as contact numbers and text messages from their phones.

Users can turn off the data collection from the settings menu, and all the previously accumulated call and text history will be deleted from the servers, Facebook said. The feature was introduced on Facebook Messenger in 2015 and was added to Facebook Lite later.

The company in response to the reports said that the call and SMS data was uploaded to secure servers and come only from Android users who opt to allow the sync of data. The company also emphasized that the data is collected in order "to improve people's experience across Facebook," and is not shared or sold with other third-party apps. The company claims that it doesn't collect the content of the text messages or calls.