Home
Social networking
Social networking News
Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Delayed Yet Again, Company Cites Need to 'Re Engineer' Data Processing

Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Delayed Yet Again, Company Cites Need to 'Re-Engineer' Data Processing

By Aman Rashid | Updated: 11 April 2019 18:23 IST

Mark Zuckerberg had announced the tool back in May last year

Highlights

Facebook’s Clear History tool launch has been delayed
The feature was announced by Zuckerberg at F8 in May 2018
'Clear History' tool to arrive in Fall 2019 this year

News about the much-anticipated 'Clear History' tool feature that Facebook was supposed to roll out in spring this year has been delayed even further. Mark Zuckerberg first announced the feature in May 2018 at Facebook's annual F8 conference. The new tool was initially set to release last year itself with no concrete details mentioned about a set date. But then it was delayed to arrive by Spring 2019 and if we go by latest reports, the feature is once again delayed and is now being prepped to release by Fall 2019.

According to a report by Engadget, Guy Rosen, Facebook's VP of Integrity has confirmed that the 'Clear History' tool is not ready yet and will now arrive by Fall this year. Rosen stated, “We're working to re-engineer our systems, and how we process that data so that we can do it right. That's why it's taking more time than anticipated.”

The idea of this “Clear tool” feature is simple. Mark Zuckerberg had described this to be as simple as clicking a button, just like people are used to erasing their browser history. However, Zuckerberg also added that this tool would also hamper the Facebook experience in a similar fashion to when you delete your cookies. What this means is that you'll have to sign back into every website and reconfigure things as Facebook will to relearn about your activities all over again.

It's almost been a year since Facebook had announced the “Clear tool” feature. Notably, it was around that time when Facebook was embroiled in a legal battle regarding the Cambridge Analytica Privacy scandal.

Facebook's head of the privacy product team at in December revealed that the Clear History won't arrive until the Spring of 2019. In February this year, we received a vague timeline of later this year.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.