Facebook will (soon) yank third-party ad data in the name of privacy

"We want to let advertisers know that we will be shutting down Partner Categories."

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and rising public pressure against Facebook, the social media giant announced on Wednesday evening that it will restrict how much data advertisers can have access to.

Facebook will soon stop allowing advertisers access to data about individuals held by companies like Experian and Acxiom.

Prior to this change, Facebook allowed advertisers to target groups of people based on an amalgamation of both datasets.

"We want to let advertisers know that we will be shutting down Partner Categories," Graham Mudd, a product marketing director, said in a statement. "This product enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook. While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people's privacy on Facebook."

Earlier on Wednesday, Facebook also said it would redesign the user-facing privacy settings panel. If that sounds familiar, it's because Facebook has made that exact kind of announcement many times over.

“We’ve redesigned our entire settings menu on mobile devices from top to bottom to make things easier to find,” Erin Egan, Facebook chief privacy officer, wrote. “Instead of having settings spread across nearly 20 different screens, they’re now accessible from a single place. We’ve also cleaned up outdated settings so it’s clear what information can and can’t be shared with apps.”