I recently read about the issue with Facebook’s social gaming applications, such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. Facebook has a partnership with companies who advertise on these applications. From what I’ve read, people are persuaded into signing up for credit cards and other subscriptions in exchange for game credits. Some are also attracted to surveys or tests for earning game points, requiring them to enter cellular phone numbers for the results. In return, the subscriber now has a service that will be charged to their phone bill. The costs were not mentioned by the advertisers.
In Barb Dybwad’s post Facebook Cracks Down on Deceptive Ads, she explains these “opt-out” offers. She briefly shares the perspective of a social gaming company, Zynga. The following is an excerpt:
“In a social game like virtual farming sim Farmville, for example, users can either spend real money to buy virtual goods, or complete offers and surveys from partner companies in exchange for virtual credits. The trouble is, some of those offers include ‘opt-out’ riders that enroll the user in some sort of paid service or subscription, and require action on the user’s part to avoid misleading charges.
MySpace CEO Own Van Natta earlier characterized these ‘opt-out’ type of offers as misleading, and announced a change to the Terms of Use to clarify what’s acceptable to both developers and users. Popular social gaming company Zynga also posted a statement stating a commitment to weed out bad and deceptive ads, while stressing that the offers industry is still nascent along with a belief that non-scammy offer ads still hold the promise of value to both user and advertiser.”
Have you experienced any offers from these scamming ads?
In a Facebook blog post, Nick Gianos explains these types of third party advertisements are an issue across the Web and that they will work to make improvements. They have banned scamming ads in the past and continue to do so now. Facebook explains how they will enforce their policies and discontinue networks that break the rules. They mention their interest in having high quality advertising and the trust of users:
Continued Action Against Deceptive Ads
By Nice Gianos
“As part of an ongoing effort we’ve had underway to address the quality of third-party ads running inside applications, we wanted to offer some clarifications, reminders, and information on our actions.
First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively. This battle is not new and it’s far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We’re doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers.
Since introducing updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform in July, we have disabled two entire ad networks and suspended or brought into compliance over 100 applications for ad-related violations in regions around the world, over half of which had more than one million monthly active users.”
What do you think of this issue?
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