Cookies and other similar technologies help provide a better, faster, and safer experience.
Technologies like cookies, pixels, and local storage are used to deliver, secure, and understand products, services, and ads, on and off Facebook. We want this page to help you understand more about these technologies and how they are used. Your browser or device may allow you to block these technologies, but you may not be able to use some features on Facebook if you block them. Check back here from time to time to get the latest information about these technologies.
These technologies are tools that websites and applications use for security purpose and to deliver products, services, and advertisements, and to understand how they are used. With these technologies, a website or application can store information on your browser or device and later read that information back. We explain more about each of these technologies and how they are used on this page.
Why do we use these technologies?
Show what matters to you
Improve your experience
Protection and security
They help us know who you are so we can show content that’s most relevant to you, including features, products, and ads.
They work with Facebook features and help us improve our products and services – so you can do things like see which friends are online in chat, use share buttons, and upload photos.
They help secure Facebook by letting us know if someone tries to access your account or engages in activity that violates our terms.
Categories of use
Examples
Authentication
These tools tell us when you’re logged in, so we can show you the appropriate experience and features.
For example, cookies tell us when you are logged in to Facebook so we can show you relevant and social information when you visit other websites that use our social plugins. We also use this information to understand how people use our Platform.
Security and site integrity
We use these to help keep Facebook safe and secure. They support or enable security features and help us detect activity that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
For example, they help protect your account from being accessed by anyone other than you. Cookies also let us know when several people have logged in from the same computer.
Advertising
Things like cookies and pixels are used to understand and deliver ads and make them more relevant to you.
For example, we may read a cookie that tells us you’re logged into Facebook so we can show you ads that may be interesting to you on Facebook or other websites. We may also use a cookie to learn whether someone who saw an ad on Facebook later visited the advertiser’s site. Similarly, one of our partners may use a cookie to determine whether we’ve shown an ad and how it performed. We also may work with a partner to show you an ad on Facebook after you’ve visited the partner’s site and this may involve the use of cookies.
Localization
These help Facebook provide a localized experience.
For example, we may store information in a cookie that is placed on your browser or device so you will see the site in your preferred language.
Site features and services
These provide functionality that help us deliver products and services.
For example, cookies help you log in by pre-filling the username field and help make chat a better experience by showing which of your friends are online. We may also use cookies to help us provide you with social plugins and other customized content and experiences.
Performance
We use these to provide you with the best experience possible.
For example, we may use a cookie to help us route traffic between servers and understand how quickly Facebook loads for different users. Sometimes we may store information on your browser or device so Facebook features you are using load and respond faster.
Analytics and research
These are used to understand, improve, and research products and services.
For example, we may use cookies to understand how you are using social plugins to improve them. We may also use a cookie to understand the ads served by us and our partners.
The specific names of the cookies, pixels and other similar technologies that we use may change from time to time, but they generally will fall into the above categories. If you’d like to learn more about these tools, review our Data Use Policy. You can also take a look at the cookies section of our publicly available audit that provides a snapshot of the cookies we use, which was performed by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s Office. This will give you a good idea of the cookies we describe on this page.
Cookies are small files that are placed on your browser or device by the website or app you’re using or ad you’re viewing. Like most websites, we use cook...
Cookies are small files that are placed on your browser or device by the website or app you’re using or ad you’re viewing. Like most websites, we use cookies to provide you with a better, faster or safer experience.
We use cookies to make Facebook better, faster and safer. For example, cookies help us: Enable certain featuresProvide you with a more personalized experi...
We use cookies to make Facebook better, faster and safer. For example, cookies help us:
Enable certain features
Provide you with a more personalized experience
Protect the security of your account, the accounts of others and Facebook
Improve, deliver, and understand the ads you see on and off Facebook
Research and understand the use of our products and services
As our Data Use Policy indicates, we use cookies to show you ads on and off Facebook. We don't use cookies to create a profile of your browsing behavior on third-party sites to show you ads. However, we may use anonymous or aggregate data to improve ads generally and study, develop or test new and existing products or services.
Learn more about the information we receive when you visit a site with a social plugin.
Facebook may place cookies on your device (ex: computer, mobile phone) when you visit us using a browser or device that allows the placement of cookies. Y...
Facebook may place cookies on your device (ex: computer, mobile phone) when you visit us using a browser or device that allows the placement of cookies. Your browser or device may allow you to block these technologies, but you may not be able to use certain features on Facebook if you block them.
Web browsers send any cookies for a particular web domain (ex: facebook.com) to the website each time a machine with those cookies accesses content served...
Web browsers send any cookies for a particular web domain (ex: facebook.com) to the website each time a machine with those cookies accesses content served from that domain. This means that any facebook.com cookies will be sent to Facebook when any page is accessed at facebook.com. It also means that these cookies are sent to Facebook when someone accesses a third party website that has a connection to facebook.com, like through one of our plugins. Your browser or device may allow you to block these technologies, but you may not be able to use some features on Facebook if you block them.
Cookies are set to provide, understand and improve a range of products and services. These cookies also help keep Facebook and the people who use Facebook...
Cookies are set to provide, understand and improve a range of products and services. These cookies also help keep Facebook and the people who use Facebook safe and secure. By understanding visitor habits and patterns, we can better detect unusual behavior and protect people from unauthorized activities.
We sometimes use service providers to help us provide certain products and services. For example, we use service providers to help you buy things using Fa...
We sometimes use service providers to help us provide certain products and services. For example, we use service providers to help you buy things using Facebook on your mobile phone. As part of those services, a provider may use a pixel to collect information about your phone so that, if you choose, it can help us conveniently bill you through your regular phone bill.
When you view, click or otherwise interact with an ad or app on or off Facebook, our partners use cookies to help provide you with relevant services and ads. For example, a platform partner may use cookies to customize your experience while you’re using their app. Or, an advertising partner may use a cookie to determine whether we’ve shown an ad and how it performed. To learn more about how advertisers generally use cookies and the choices they offer, you can review the following resources:
To learn more about how some of the most common advertisers and their partners use cookies and the choices they offer, you can review the following resources:
We use tools like cookies to help keep Facebook safe, secure and easy to use. Cookies support or enable security features. For example, with login approva...
We use tools like cookies to help keep Facebook safe, secure and easy to use. Cookies support or enable security features. For example, with login approvals if someone logs into your account from a browser you’ve never used before, we’ll block them and ask for more information. They also help us implement login notifications, so you can be alerted when your account is accessed and disable any active Facebook sessions.
Besides helping to keep unauthorized people from logging into your account, we also use cookies to help make sure the people or machines that access Facebook don’t violate our policies. For example, certain information on Facebook is public and therefore can be accessed by anyone on the internet. These cookies help us understanding the volume and frequency of requests so we can detect and stop people or machines from “scraping” information from our site.
We also use these tools to make Facebook easier to use, like when you mistype one character of your username or password. If you’ve already logged into Facebook from the same browser, we’ll give you easier options to correct your typo since we know you’ve successfully logged into Facebook before.
Facebook does use cookies if you don’t have an account or have logged out of your account. For example, we use cookies to help: Identify and disable the a...
Facebook does use cookies if you don’t have an account or have logged out of your account. For example, we use cookies to help:
Identify and disable the accounts of spammers
Recover your account if you ever lose access to it
Prevent people who are underage from signing up with a false birth date
Identify public computers so that we can discourage people from using Keep me logged in
We also set cookies if you don’t have a Facebook account but have visited facebook.com to help us protect Facebook and the people who use it from malicious activity. For example, these cookies help us detect and prevent denial-of-service attacks and the mass creation of fake accounts.
If you have cookies on your browser or device, we read that cookie when you visit a site with a social plugin. Learn more.
As our Data Use Policy indicates, we use cookies to show you ads on and off Facebook. We don't use cookies to create a profile of your browsing behavior on third-party sites to show you ads. However, we may use anonymous or aggregate data to improve ads generally and study, develop or test new and existing products or services.
Pixel tags (also called clear GIFs, web beacons, or pixels) are small blocks of code on a webpage that allow websites to do things like read and place coo...
Pixel tags (also called clear GIFs, web beacons, or pixels) are small blocks of code on a webpage that allow websites to do things like read and place cookies. The resulting connection can include information such as the person’s IP address, the time the person viewed the pixel and the type of browser being used.
We use pixel tags to customize your experience and learn about how people use products and services. For example, we can use pixel tags to see that a person using a certain browser saw an ad on Facebook and also bought a product from that advertiser. This helps us show advertisers that the ads they run on Facebook are effective.
Local storage is an industry-standard technology that allows a website or app to store and retrieve data on a person’s computer, mobile phone, or other de...
Local storage is an industry-standard technology that allows a website or app to store and retrieve data on a person’s computer, mobile phone, or other device. Some examples include device or HTML5 local storage and caching. Most web browsers offer settings for you to control whether or not to allow local storage.
We use local storage to understand and improve how our products and services perform and to enable certain features. For example, we may store certain parts of the Facebook website on your device so that those pages load faster the next time you visit them. Local storage also allows us to provide certain services to someone who doesn’t have access to the internet. For example, you can read and compose messages in the Facebook Messenger app when you’re offline because we store those messages locally on your device.