

Facebook blocks Google+ ads - tim_sw
https://plus.google.com/106914186897370535526/posts/2pTycLzDK79

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Klonoar
Facebook is a damn business, Google+ is competition. The fact that this ad was
blocked isn't really news, it's just how business plays out. It's not in
Facebook's interest at all to run this.

I routinely find myself astonished at how people think the online world should
work. Everything should be free, don't charge for anything, let your
competitors advertise in your space, ads are the devil, business plan is to
make money through advertising... seriously people, the hell?

~~~
haberman
What competitor's ads do Google block?

People respond to a story like this because it belies an attitude of
weakness/protectionism from Facebook, not so much because of some kind of
moral outrage about how things "should" be.

~~~
Klonoar
This is different; Google created an advertisement solution for the entire web
and pushed it as such, necessitating that it be fairly open and non-judging.

Facebook's exists solely on their website, and while some will try to argue
that Facebook has by and large become "the web" for people, the point is that
it's still their site, their rules, their game, and in turn you play by their
rules. They don't hide this fact in the slightest.

It's simply good business for Facebook to block these ads.

~~~
esrauch
I'm not sure if I follow that logic. Why wouldn't it similarly be good
business for Google to block all ads to Facebook and Twitter across their
entire network at this point?

~~~
hackinthebochs
Would that not cause anti-trust issues? Google pretty much owns the online ad
space. Blocking competitors ads is _not_ in their interest.

~~~
esrauch
Maybe if they blocked their ads on the internet, but it just doesn't seem like
there is much difference in blocking bing from advertizing on google.com and
facebook blocking ads for google+. I think Facebook has even more market share
in social than google has in search, and both are decisions about advertizing
on their own destination pages with their own in-house advertizing systems.

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orijing
No one here mentioned the likely reason that the ads were blocked by the ad
review system (a combination of ML and people in India or something). I don't
know exactly how it works, but I'm pretty sure it is risky for Facebook to
allow ads to run with trademarks that the advertiser does not own.

 _The Google+ logo is a trademark._

Can he try running an ad with just his face? It still might get disabled (in
which case it probably is for competitive reasons) but I suspect that would
take a lot longer... Especially if he doesn't say Google+.

"I have moved to another social network. Click here to find me now" would
likely get past filters.

~~~
reso
A million times this. I bet, with their volume, very few ads would make it to
the human-review stage at Facebook. This was most likely caught by an
automated filter that didn't like something (e.g., the trademark image) about
the ad.

Never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to stupidity, or in
this case, naive artificial intelligence.

~~~
ig1
All new Facebook ads are manually approved.

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oppo
When did hacker news become so sensationalist?

"My Facebook ad is live! Last night I found a message from +Michael Lee
Johnson where he mentioned that his Facebook ad promoting his Google+ account
was suspended after running for about an hour. I wanted to find out if
Facebook would approve my ad.

Any publisher can refuse any ad they want, and Facebook's advertising
guidelines make it clear that they can "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."

Since +Mark Zuckerberg said that he did not see Google+ as a competing
product, I wanted to test their advertising guidelines and it looks like Mark
was right. Facebook does not see Google+ as a competing product as my ad was
approved.

Now they can take my $ from the clicks of my ad. Congrats Facebook, but I
still want my friends to know I moved to:
<http://Profiles.Google.com/SocialJulio> "

Not to mention there are probably issues with trademarks and running ads to a
specific person (a friend tried to link to his own profile and his ad was
blocked).

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law
If Facebook were confident that they make a better product, they'd embrace
competition as a sort of self-check in the system. They'd spend a day or two
to adapt their already-developed you-can-download-your-whole-account feature
to allow customers to switch to Google+, if they desire.

But they won't do this. Their reluctance underscores their belief that they
don't make a product superior to Google's; if they did, they'd have no problem
with these advertisements.

~~~
skarayan
In my opinion, a reason for concern is different than believing their product
is inferior.

At the end of the day, this is business. In business, there are many ways to
battle the competition.

G+ is clearly gaining some initial traction and Facebook doesn't want their
platform to be used to better the competition.

~~~
law
I think it's more nuanced than that. Facebook's reputation and brand equity is
perhaps their second most cherished asset (second to their user base). A move
like blocking Google advertisements will result in even more bad press when
they really need to focus on delivering a better product.

In the end, however, I think Facebook will become obsolete. It's a technology
like any other, and I think it has become too big for it to be everything to
everyone. Of course, that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

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erikb
You would never expect to find Mercedes ads on BMW's website. Also everybody
knows that u don't need to look for Windows advertisments on apple.com. So I
think it is also quite normal, that Facebook doesn't want to advertise G+ on
their website.

~~~
ugh
I know quite a few newspapers that have no problem selling ad space to their
competitors and have done just that. Your comparison to companies that don’t
even sell ad space doesn’t make any sense.

This is an astonishing display of cowardice on Facebook’s part (if it is
indeed true).

~~~
nhebb
If I google "facebook games" I see a few AdWords listed. If a Google user
clicks those ads, it's not like that will drive the user away from Google
search. But if someone on Facebook has an ad that reads "Julio Fernandez moved
to Google+ ...", then that is driving users away from Facebook. I don't see
why a company should facilitate a mass exodus toward a competing service. I
don't use Facebook and think they're kind of creepy, but I can't fault them
for this.

~~~
perlpimp
Google+ is not Facebook. Nor it will ever be. The only hope google has is not
to make a better facebook, but to change rules of the game.

There will be no exodus from facebook. Evolution moves at its own pace,
regardless of facebook or google. Only those that go in step with evolution
will flourish.

As such exodus from facebook will never happen. Though young and bright - most
lucrative section of advertising market might just go and do something else.

Restriction seems to always backfire as in this case, it may well play out.

just 2c

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Downvotes should be reserved for off-topic or badly-expressed comments. If you
disagree, click "reply" and educate me.

 _There will be no exodus from facebook._

It is likely that this ad ban was instigated by watching Facebook pageviews
plummet, and by watching contagious defection spread through their userbase.

~~~
erikb
I gave u an up for both of ur posts. I really hate these opinion based
downvotes. It is really not what it is meant for.

My upvotes are more a delete of false downvotes. They are not meant as a
support for ur point, btw.

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B0Z
Konoar, you are wrong.

What others have noted here needs to be considered. It's not the fact that
Facebook is blocking ads that point to google plus, it's that they
(apparently) have chosen a particular competitor and applied a completely
different set of rules that others are not bound to. That, by definition is
anti-competitive. I'm not lawyer, and certainly wikipedia should be taken with
a healthy dose of common sense, but these are the first two sentences of the
entry on United States antitrust law: "The United States antitrust law is the
body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly) and unfair
business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in
the marketplace." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law>

Antitrust is EXACTLY the same thing that Google is now being investigated for
by the department of justice... by promoting an unfair pricing / ranking
schematic against competitors by ensuring their own ads are listed higher than
those of the competition. (Yelp, I believe).

If I were facebook, would I find a way to stop Google+ ads? You're damned
right I would, but I would be subject to the same scrutiny of those who
comment here.

This is not a no-brainer. This is a big deal.

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ig1
I'd be curious if they'd allow such an ad for a Facebook profile, possibly
they disallowed it because it was inappropriate to the target user group (for
example you're not allowed to target dating sites to people in a
relationship). Especially if the guy chose to run it as CPC, Facebook will
have no commercial interest in running an ad which will get a negligible
amount of clicks.

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atarian
It's now on Techcrunch: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/15/google-ad-on-
facebook-is-ba...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/15/google-ad-on-facebook-is-
banned/)

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dendory
Not approving ads for G+ I can understand. However Facebook has a history of
blocking shares, even through private messages, of any site they don't like,
and that's wrong

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jangozo
its pretty interesting where this war will go ... pretty much gplus is taking
a good market share this time :)

