YOU GUYS — Meta just doubled down on how much of your online life it tracks and feeds back to you! Starting in July, they're using activity from off-platform sites not just for ads, but to shape what actually shows up in your Reels feed. So if you bought a tent at an outdoor store last week, scroll through Instagram later and I guarantee there will be camping gear videos everywhere. The catch is Meta claims it’s "not collecting any new data"—they're already getting this info from the businesses that share it with them — but the real point is that your shopping on another site now directly dictates what you see in their app.

This isn't a total surprise if you know how aggressively they track, but here are the specific mechanics. Before this update, Meta only used in-app actions like likes and views for feed personalization; since last year, they also plugged AI conversation data into ad targeting. Now they're pulling business partner data from your external purchases into the whole mix. If you want to block it — which I recommend if privacy matters at all — find the "Activity from other businesses" setting in your account and toggle it off. The rollout is global, but skip ahead: EU users are already somewhat shielded because this feature isn't launching there yet, along with Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Turkey, South Korea, Ecuador, Nigeria, Kenya, and the UK.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/tech/946744/meta-website-activity-personalize-feeds