The changes should take effect before the end of 2019. The settlement also includes payouts under $5 million to the groups that filed the lawsuit, $2.5 million of which is going to the National Fair Housing Alliance to both train advertisers on compliance and run ads for fair housing.

Facebook had culled some ad targeting options before, but this is a far more substantial move. In many cases, it will limit certain advertisers to only very generic targeting criteria like your region. There's a good possibility that this will lead some advertisers to scale back or withdraw their ads.

However, the company might not have had much choice. The lawsuit pointed out that Facebook's earlier options made it possible to run ads that discriminated against minorities, seniors, the disabled and other groups. If it didn't loosen its guidelines, it faced mounting pressure from civil rights groups, HUD and others concerned that it was reviving the concept of redlining for the modern era.