Facebook will begin tracking people without Facebook accounts across the web as the social media giant expands its advertising empire.

The company’s advertising network plans to install pieces of code known as “cookies” on internet user’s browsers, even if they do not have Facebook accounts, it has announced.

Cookies monitor the websites that internet browsers visit and are used to target adverts at users. For example, after looking for furniture online you may see an IKEA advert on another page.

Facebook Audience Network, which allows other websites to target their adverts using the company’s treasure trove of data, has previously only done so for people logged in to Facebook, and uses both cookies and data about activity on the social network itself.