How to Make Facebook Ads Less Intrusive

A friend of mine has a young daughter who was recently assigned a school e-mail account. It was only to be used for teacher/student/parent communication. Instead, the child received one of "those" e-mails referring to enhancing parts that she does not even possess.

Another friend posted about red heels. The heels were a classy deep maroon and went with her crisp dark grey suit.

Then a relative started a Facebook debate about wedding cakes and gay marriage.

I am an active Facebooker (is that a thing?) and commented on their posts.

I'm going to pause here for a moment and let you imagine what the ads on my Facebook page looked like that week.

Let's just say that they were controversial and less timid than I would like, particularly when working in public places with my laptop!

But Facebook has some built-in solutions that can help (as shown in the highlighted portion of the above picture). 

Don't worry if you can't read it in the picture. I'll walk you through the step-by-step of minimizing Facebook's creepy use of your information in advertisements.

This should be done on a computer rather than your phone.

STEP 1: Select the privacy icon right of your Earth-shaped notifications icon.

STEP 2: Select "See More Settings" at the bottom of the list of Privacy Shortcuts that pops up.

STEP 3: In the left column, select "Ads" as circled below.

STEP 4 and 5: Edit the Third Party Sites and Ads and Friends by choosing "Edit" then "No one."

STEP 6: The "Ads Based On Your Use Of Websites Or Apps Off Facebook" section includes a link to the Digital Advertising Alliance. Click the Digital Advertising Alliance link and follow the directions on the site.

You'll still get ads, of course, but they will be less mind-reader creepy.

Also, Facebook can always change its policies, Facebook still knows what you post, and you should still act as if anything on Facebook is public, just in case.

But at least you won't have ads that would make your momma blush!

Etcetera.

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