Facebook blocks Google+ ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#41

Post by haberman » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

Klonoar wrote: post #33

haberman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Google does not block competitors' ads even for ads appearing on Google.com.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#42

Post by oppo » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 4:58 PM UTC

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).

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#43

Post by AltIvan » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

Klonoar wrote: post #28

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…

Oh yeah? This is just bussines? Well, then maybe Google Search should be starting redirecting users to Google+ every time someone clicks a Facebook link.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#44

Post by reso » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:26 PM UTC

orijing wrote: post #35

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…

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.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#45

Post by hackinthebochs » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:33 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #40

Klonoar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

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

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#46

Post by ig1 » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:40 PM UTC

reso wrote: post #44

orijing wrote: post #35

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…

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.

All new Facebook ads are manually approved.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#47

Post by ig1 » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:48 PM UTC

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.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#48

Post by loganlinn » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 6:28 PM UTC

AltIvan wrote: post #43

Klonoar wrote: post #28

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…

Oh yeah? This is just bussines? Well, then maybe Google Search should be starting redirecting users to Google+ every time someone clicks a Facebook link.

I'm sorry, but that is a terrible analogy. Redirecting a link is blatantly deceitful and dishonest. Not to mention we are talking about advertising space here, not search results.

The comparison would be if Google did not allow Facebook to advertise in Google. Either way, I think it's hard to compare their advertising spaces due to their very different natures.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#49

Post by esrauch » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #45

esrauch wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

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.

Re: Facebook blocks Google+ ads

#50

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 7:07 PM UTC

haberman wrote: post #30

Klonoar wrote: post #28

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…

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.

I don't know that they do. I keep getting an advertisement for "alternatives to adsense" in my Google ads.

The only exception, such as it is, would be that Google booted Copiepresse after that company sued them. They claim to be required to do so by court order, though Copiepresse disputes this. I haven't read the court order myself, so I don't know, but I can easily see it being badly worded.