Date: Thursday, August 16, 2007

Facebook responds to action from advertisers

After many companies withdrew their advertising accounts from the website following their ads’ appearance on the BNP page, Facebook knew that something had to be done; the result: tighter controls for advertisers over where their adverts appear.

Following a potentially damaging walkout from many of Facebook’s top advertisers over the appearance of their adverts on the British National Party profile page, the website has announced that it is developing new technology which will allow advertisers to specify where their ads can appear. In the past two weeks companies such as Vodafone, the Central Office of Information (COI) government body, First Direct, Virgin Media and the AA, all walked out on the site, prompting Facebook to take action. Following the introduction of the new controls, most of the companies who boycotted the site have said that they are willing to discuss reinstating their accounts with Facebook. This was forecast by the chief operating officer of Facebook earlier in the week who predicted that following the introduction of the new controls most if not all of the advetisers would return. He also added that they were not prepared for the walkout, as they had not seen it coming.

The UK Internet Advertising Bureau have said that social networking sites vitally need to take this action if they want to avoid losing their advertisers due to undesired associations. The new controls will allow companies to stipulate where their ads can appear, and to opt out of them appearing next to group profiles if they so wish. The new measures will be welcomed by many of the top companies who, although have been keen to tap in to the huge market available to them on social networking websites have been discouraged due to these sites lack of control over their content.

Source: Times Online