Meta announced on Tuesday that it will repurpose data shared by external businesses for personalized feed and AI chatbot responses, moving beyond its traditional use in targeted advertising. The company stated in a release that businesses already share information about user activity on their sites with Meta to improve ad relevance.
This expansion raises significant privacy concerns, as the data—including user interactions like games played on third-party sites—will now influence what users see in their feeds and how the AI chatbot responds. The move broadens Meta's data utilization without requiring additional user consent, according to the announcement.
Technically, the data is collected via Meta's business tools such as the Meta Pixel or Conversions API, which track user activity across external websites. This information will feed into recommendation algorithms for both content curation and AI-driven chat interactions, potentially offering more tailored experiences but at the cost of increased data linkage.
The policy change takes effect immediately for most users, with no opt-out mechanism for the new use cases beyond existing ad personalization controls. Meta has not provided a specific timeline for full rollout or detailed technical documentation on how the data will be partitioned between ads and AI systems.
Privacy advocates have criticized the decision as a further erosion of user control over personal data, though Meta frames it as a means to enhance user experience. No specific security vulnerabilities or active exploits are tied to this announcement, but the expanded data surface area could increase risks for targeted phishing or manipulation.