How we use your Microsoft Edge browsing history for personalized advertising and experiences
With your permission, we'll collect and use your browsing activity from within Microsoft Edge to personalize advertising, recommendations, and experiences for Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Bing, Microsoft News, and other Microsoft services. This means we'll use your browsing activity to make your web experience, including ads, search results, shopping recommendations, and news articles you see, more relevant and useful to you.
Your browsing activity currently includes things such as:
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Browsing history
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Favorite sites like your favorites and collections
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Usage data about how you use the browser
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Web content like the pages you view
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Device data like version number
For example, when we personalize Microsoft Edge Shopping, if we infer from your browsing activity that you prefer shopping at a particular store, the coupons or advertising you see might be customized to display that store’s products. Similarly, when we personalize your news, if you frequently look at travel blogs and read travel articles, then your Microsoft news feed might display more relevant news content about traveling.
This data will not be collected while browsing InPrivate or Guest.
Your customer content, like notes in your Collections, will never be used to personalize advertisements.
What is Microsoft Edge browsing history?
Browsing history is information about the websites you visit using Microsoft Edge, including the list of sites you visited and associated data such as the URL, site name, and time you visited the site.
You’re in control of this data
Your browsing activity is collected and used for this personalization only if you've provided permission for the collection and use of this data for personalized advertising and experiences. Whether you provide this data is up to you, and you can turn this feature off or on at any time.
To manage the collection and use of your browsing activity for personalized advertising and experiences:
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Open Microsoft Edge.
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Select Settings and more > Settings > Privacy, search, and services .
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Under Personalization & advertising, turn on or off the setting for Allow Microsoft to save your browsing activity including history, usage, favorites, web content, and other browsing data to personalize Microsoft Edge and Microsoft services like ads, search, shopping and news.
If you stop sharing this data, Microsoft will no longer collect and use your browsing activity for personalization of advertising or experiences from that point forward.
You can view and delete your browsing activity at any time
If you're signed into Microsoft Edge using a Microsoft account, you can manage your browsing history, apps and service activity, and device details you've shared with us by visiting account.microsoft.com.
If you’re not signed into Microsoft Edge with a Microsoft account, you will need to create a Microsoft account to view browsing history, apps and service activity, and device details shared with Microsoft.
You can also view and delete the local browsing history saved to your device by typing Edge://history into the address bar.
If you delete your browsing history from the Microsoft privacy dashboard, you will still be able to keep a local copy because the browsing history on your device will not be automatically deleted.
Manage your interests and ad settings
Depending on your ad settings, Microsoft will personalize the advertising you see based on other data you share with us in addition to your browsing activity. You may see ads based on your interests, favorites, location, demographic information, how you use our products, Microsoft Bing searches, and other content. You can learn more about Microsoft advertising practices in the Advertising section of the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
You can modify your interests and control ad settings from the Microsoft privacy dashboard. Here you can choose whether Microsoft advertisements are personalized to your Microsoft account across all devices.
If the See ads that interest you setting on the Microsoft privacy dashboard is turned Off, Microsoft will not use your data for personalized advertising, including browsing history, regardless of whether the Microsoft Edge personalized advertising and experiences control is turned on or off.
Note that turning off the See ads that interest you setting on the Microsoft privacy dashboard does not turn off the collection and use of your browsing activity for personalization of search results, content in your news feed, or other Microsoft web experiences. To turn off this collection and use of your Microsoft Edge browsing activity:
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Open Microsoft Edge.
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Select Settings and more > Settings > Privacy, search, and services .
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Under Personalization & advertising, turn on or off the setting for Allow Microsoft to save your browsing activity including history, usage, favorites, web content, and other browsing data to personalize Microsoft Edge and Microsoft services like ads, search, shopping and news.
To learn more about additional Windows controls including Tailored experiences, got to Diagnostics, feedback, and privacy in Windows 10.
Additional information about our privacy practices
To learn more about how Microsoft handles personal data, visit the Microsoft Privacy Statement. If you're not able to find what you’re looking for, or you have a privacy question or concern, contact our privacy team.
