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Facebook Bans Google+ Ads
Barbara, not Barbie writes "Not content with making it hard for people to export their Facebook contacts to Google+, Facebook has now banned all ads from app developer Michael Lee Johnson, who ran an ad saying 'Add Michael to Google+.' Facebook sent him the following message: 'Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'"
Even if Facebook really didn't disable this guy's account for running a Google+ ad they have effectively become an ad for Google+ themselves.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
When will companies realize that putting your head in the sand and pretending the competition does not exist will make it go away? This is a stupid move on facebook's part. If you are scared of the new competition, than innovate and make your product better. Otherwise you will end up like Blockbuster, GM, and countless others examples throughout history.
Funny thing is that alot less people would have noticed such a stunt had Facebook just left it alone... Thanks to their decision, I didn't even have to log into Facebook to see the ad, he doesn't have to pay for the impression of the ad to me, and Facebook doesn't get the money for it! ... Sweet Deal
+++ATH0 NO CARRIER
Also in the news, Google bans Facebook from it's search results. Facebook complains, fails to see the humour of the situation.
They tell him they can't identify which part(s) of their own Terms of Service have been violated and then tell the guy if he has any questions he should review their terms of service for the answers. WTF over. The term Sophomoric comes to mind.
At the very least they should have changed their ToS and then notified him of what he's violated.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.
This is such nonsense. If he has violated it, tell him where. Giving a non-specific reason and telling him to try and work it out for himself is ridiculous.
(Yes, obviously this is a "we are banning you but not explicitly saying why, mwahaha!" but it is still bullshit)
A lot of companies have ads set to display when a user searches for their company name. That's not apparently the case for Facebook.
But has anybody seen a Facebook ad in the context of any other search terms on Google?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The Facebook is doomed. They understand that and they are trying to do anything possible to stop people running away. But it is inevitable: Google+ is much better place to do things like that.
In a nutshell: "Your account has been disabled, we won't do business with you anymore, and we can't tell you why." Did I miss something? Did Verizon buy out Facebook? Or are we simply seeing the beginning of a pattern in the way business is going to be conducted in the future to avoid the expense of having to pay a human being to deal with customers, and to avoid the possibility of writing anything specific that could be used in court or the media?
What ever happened to being blunt and frank, like when the Cleveland Stadium Corp responded to a complaint with a reply on company letterhead that read:
This article and summary are unclear about how the advert was posted--presumably it was a wall post.
The article lists various places in the terms of use that he might have violated, but this excerpt seems most likely:
""We may refuse ads at any time for any reason, including our determination that they promote competing products or services or negatively affect our business or relationship with our users."
Which seems overly-broad and anti-competitive. What exactly constitutes an ad? Can I express my interest in something only if facebook isn't developing a competing product?
In the linked story, the ad is still being pulled from a server that adblock will remove, so disable it to see it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The timing is excellent, however. Shortly before Google+ was announced, I saw someone estimating a $1trillion estimate for the future valuation of Facebook. Now we are seeing that 75% of capital markets executives at investment banks believe that the multi-billion dollar valuations for many private companies are too high.. Some people are calling the Facebook IPO the greatest short opportunity ever.
If Facebook doesn't IPO soon, the multi-year death-spiral will hit their investors first.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That's not really how that works. You're supposed to obey the law without the government having to go in and enforce it.
As stated, they are not a monopoly. There is freedom of speech, but there's not a REQUIREMENT that if you are a service you are required to take any advertising, no matter the content. It's perfectly legal to refuse to carry any ad, on whatever grounds.
I don't see why Facebook, or any company, should be required to participate in its own demise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Terms of Service, section 11 "Special Provisions Applicable to Advertisers" number 13 "We may reject or remove any ad for any reason."
then section 14 "Termination" number 1 "If you violate the letter or spirit of this Statement, or otherwise create risk or possible legal exposure for us, we can stop providing all or part of Facebook to you."
So the guy ran afoul of section 11 number 13 and was then terminated because he created "risk." Risk of loosing users. Lame.
-- QED
If you use Chrome, it hardly matters whether you type a url, a search term, or a URLish search term. I don't even think about it anymore. Just mash my fingers down on the keyboard and either I get where I meant to go on the first try, or the one more click on the search results and I'm there. Anyone got a problem with that?
If Facebook doesn't IPO soon, the multi-year death-spiral will hit their investors first.
I think they missed the IPO boat. Investors are already nervous about FB.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I sent out some invites and my daughter, and some of my nephews were denied entry to Google+ because they are not yet over 18. So Google is not really trying all that hard to woo people into its fold. But all this antics by Facebook makes it look scared. BTW I hope Facebook permits users under 18 and all these kids playing farmville in Facebook are not lying about their age.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I take it then that Facebook happily stands behind ads for penny auction scams, "consumption loans" with exuberant rates, suspicious herbs etc.?
Google, please get G+ finished so we can ditch Zyngabook once and for all.
I so hope you are right. It will put a smile and may face, and make my day bright.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Job killing tax hikes. That's a laugh. How many jobs were killed under the lowest tax rates ever since the 1940s? Wait, I'm sorry, history for you doesn't exist prior to January 2009... (And you thought creationists were easy to make fun of with their 6000 years of history...these folks whitewash the day they were born from the map!)
Here's another fact your side loves to trot out: 47% pay no federal income tax.
You know WHY that is?
Well, once they pay for little things like food, shelter, clothing...there's nothing left to tax. Fancy that... So all those evil evil welfare programs are in place so they're able to survive without having to riot for food. Provide a living wage, people can get off welfare programs AND have disposable income to buy new iFruits. The economy MOVES.
Course, I think it's a good thing when the population as a whole has money to spend rather than 1% hoarding it all in Scrooge McDuck like towers...but I only had 4 weeks of economics class in high school...
History contradicts your assertions.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:MarginalIncomeTax.svg
Tax rates for the rich were high through the "golden age" of the 50's and 60's: in fact, in 1953, when unemployment was lowest, the tax rate on the rich was close to its highest.
Jobs are created when money is in circulation. High taxes on the rich take money out of hoarding and put it into circulation. When taxes are low, the rich hoard money: sure, there's some investment in enterprise, but there's far more speculation in commodities, real estate, currencies, metals, etc. Except for real estate, these don't create jobs: commodities do fine without speculation, and real estate only produces jobs when it's residential or commercial and new and not-bubbly, not when it's about buying up farmland in central Africa (like some major funds now do).
Tax rates haven't been as low as they are now since the beginning of the Great Depression. It's periods of low taxation that sequester money and deprive free enterprise of demand for its products (that is to say, of the supply of money). Under low rates of taxation, only the super-wealthy gain, while the economy rots away, whereas under high rates of top-bracket taxation, the entire country grows richer, including the ultra-rich, but they just get richer more slowly.
I don't know... Your slashot UID is a bit too high for me to trust blindly...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What does this have to do with Facebook or Google+?
I hope that you sir, are a perfect typist and never ever make typographical errors, especially when entering a URL. Thus you will never have to take advantage of the fact that if you enter the incorrect address into a Google search first it will direct you to the correct address and/or warn you of most malicious phishing sites that you may inadvertently visit via your much praised "address bar".
Furthermore, if you use most browser's "address bar" to incorrectly enter a URL and wind up at a phishing site, it will bring you back to the same phishing site automatically when you enter the partial URL via auto-completion search.
However, now Firefox and Chrome (unsure about IE) coordinates with lists of phishing sites in order to bring this functionality to their respective "URL / search bars" (they have no plain "address bar" available, even FF searches your history). Note that this feature most likely provides the anti-phishing provider with a list of every URL you visit online... Conversely, everyone can take advantage of the Google URL search features (including quick links to subsections of the site) regardless of the browser they are using.
Finally, I would also like you to shove your helpful suggestion into the previously recommended place considering that you do not seem qualified to be suggesting either against or for either URL entry technique, and I would recommend that you yourself follow the technique your insightful friend rightfully remains using before you make more uninformed suggestions.
There are two kinds of people who are against tax increase. Selfish, rich people who couldn't care less if a million people died as long as they got a million bucks more, and dumb poor people who swallowed the hype and think that by paying 10% less tax they could afford anything and would be better off.
It's actually that simple.
The only entity in a country that is interested in creating jobs for the sake of getting people employed is the government. Nobody else benefits from someone being employed as directly, aside of the employed person himself. They, and only they, have the ability to create a job and an interest in creating one. The "rich people creating jobs" myth is just that. A myth. Imagine you're rich. Now where would it cross your mind to "hmm... I should create jobs, ya know..."? You might want something accomplished, but that means you will try to create as few jobs as possible. Why? Because that costs your money. DUH!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unethical != Illegal. You can think (as I do) that Facebook is acting unethically without thinking they're acting illegally.
We take this as a serious competitor/
'Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.'"
Facebook is an American company. Since when did any American ever use the term "advert"? Seriously, Americans do not say this. The shortened form of "advertisement" in the U.S. is "ad," not "advert." Any claim otherwise makes me want to see the actual text of the original email, if one did indeed exist. Furthermore, companies do not let random employees write emails about corporate policy and send them out without having them reviewed and vetted for language. This sounds like someone (from the UK) is using the press to hype up his own business at Facebook's expense.
Breakfast served all day!
Now wait a minute.
Assume I am that developer and running those ads. Now Facebook comes and says "listen dude, we have blocked your ads. We are sorry. We feel your ads are negatively impacting us. Please either change them or run them elsewhere. Yes, we know it's not nice; yes, we know we might lose a bit of cash; but please understand our motives". Now I would be a bit pissed at them but I would understand.
I would even appreciate their approach.
But what they did is piss-poor judgement and reaction. Disabling the account altogether for clouded (yet duh!-style obvious) reasons? "We can't tell you why"? That's utter bullshit.
See, that's the difference between "some company nicely trying to protect their business" and "some company stomping on you head-on to protect their business".
Many, many EULAs say "we can disable your account for any reason or no reason" (anyone playing World of Warcraft? Yes? read it: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/termsofuse.html - "BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE ACCOUNTS AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU."). Sorry for caps, guys, it's the original shit.
And guess what. They actually DO it. Whether you hear of it or not is a different story. Most people don't publicly complain, and if they do, they don't gain momentum unless they're celebrities.
I was playing a rather crappy MMO and in our group's internal chat we were typing in Romanian. Now the game masters had no issue with private chatrooms using non-english languages; but they had a problem with their filtering bots. See, Romanian has a word (translated to English, it means "How") which is spelled "cum". And their filter reported me numerous times for abusing this word. So my account got banned (one game master actually was pressed enough to mention why). Needless to say, the account never got reactivated.
Anyway, the point is that companies AFFORD to be unethical. And they got your agreement to be so. Kinda sad if you think about it.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Facebook gave Michael Lee Johnson a withering stare.
"You know what you did," she said.
"And if you don't know what you did, that's even worse. Pig."
You dated her, too?
Yes, please keep voting Republican... I'm so close to buying my own Boeing 747 and would hate to also have to forgo buying another Bentley for my daughter if my taxes are raised back to pre-2001 levels.
And someone wants to sell you that 747 and bentley. And someone wants to sell the parts and tools to make them, etc. It's called trickle down, my friends. And a trickle is better than unemployment.
Isn't it just as unethical to run the ad for Facebook's competitor in the first place?
Facebook just banned him for no reason. They didn't actually say "we're banning you for advertising a competitor".
If Facebook isn't willing to admit the reason why they banned him, then Facebook doesn't get the benefit of being able to claim the reason is ethical.