Facebook will release a history deletion tool later this year

Facebook will release the so-called Clear History tool sometime later this year. Users can use this to remove information that Facebook has collected about them, which would make it more difficult for Facebook to offer advertisements in a very targeted way.

Facebook’s chief financial officer, David Wehner, said at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2019 that the tool will be released later this year, CNBC reports. The tool gives Facebook “some headwind in its ability to serve ads as effectively as before,” Wehner said. It is not yet clear when exactly that will happen, but according to BuzzFeed News, Facebook will start testing the tool in the spring.

The arrival of this tool, which is basically akin to deleting cookies and history in the web browser, was announced by Mark Zuckerberg in May last year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He argues that using this tool causes Facebook to work less well and have to relearn users’ preferences, which he says is comparable to the experience of browsing after the cookies have been deleted.

The tool allows users to see information about apps and websites that they have used in any way. That information can then be removed from the user’s own account and users can also disable the storage of such information in its entirety.