You may have read that Facebook changed its policy for third-party advertisers and the use of user photos. Facebook issued a statement on the company blog denying any such changes.
“The advertisements that started these rumors were not from Facebook but placed within applications by third parties,” says Facebook’s manager of policy communications, Barry Schnitt. “Those ads violated our policies by misusing profile photos, and we already required the removal of those deceptive ads from third-party applications before this rumor began spreading.”
Facebook has gone so far as to shut down Facebook access to two entire advertising networks because they did not comply with the social network’s policies. They were evidently warned too, because Facebook says they “failed to correct their practices.”
The company encourages users to report ads that they believe violate its policies. For Facebook’s own ads, users can simply click the thumbs-down icon for “dislike this ad”. For third-party ads, users can click the “report” link at the bottom of the page.
There have been some complaints circulating throughout the blogosphere about user photos appearing in Facebooks own ads. Schnitt addresses this as well. “We’ve run advertisements from our own advertising system for more than a year that let your friends know if you have a direct connection with a product or service, in the same way that your friends learn through your News Feed if you’re connected with another friend or an organization’s Facebook Page,” he says.
Facebook says that social ads always require that users have taken “express action” to indicate their connections with the product and that no data will be shared with the third party.
