How non-Facebook users can stop Facebook from tracking them around the web

For the first time, Facebook will use information about people who don't have accounts on the social network to show them ads on other websites through its Audience Network, the company announced earlier this week.

Facebook's Audience Network lets brands extend their Facebook ad campaigns off of Facebook using the same targeting data as they use on it, and previously the social network only showed these ads to people who had accounts. It had already collected information on their interests from their Facebook activity.

But now, Facebook will use information it collects about everyone on the internet through cookies, plugins and other pieces of code on websites across the internet to show more ads.

"Our buttons and plugins send over basic information about users' browsing sessions," Facebook ad exec Brian Bosworth explained to The Wall Street Journal. "For non-Facebook members, previously we didn't use it. Now we'll use it to better understand how to target those people."

A ton of other companies already track you across the internet for the same kind of interest-based advertising that Facebook's doing.

The company says that its own ads are less annoying and better tailored to your interests since it can use what it has learned from its 1.65 billion members to choose better ads for non-Facebook users with less information.

But if you're a non-Facebook user who would rather not see Facebook's interest-based ads, here's how to opt out: