Los Angeles — Ingenuity is certainly an hallmark to be admired. It is easy to see the fierce battle is being raged in the social media world; as everyone is vying for a piece of the ever-increasing sized ‘pie’! Yet, commercial ingenuity is something to be revered, but that seems to have been reversed as the current scenario between search engine giant Google and Facebook, which, as reported by TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld, has removed a piece of fine commercial ingenuity from its site.
In fact, Facebook should deeply concentrate on continuing to deliver a solid product rather than niggling about ads on its site that promote rival social media networking service Google+.
App developer Michael Lee Johnson, aware of the need to be big on Google+ or be nobody, wondered what the best way to float his Google+ circles might be. He stumbled upon a fine idea: he placed an ad on Facebook, trolling for Google+ followers. It was a simple thing that was headlined: “Add Michael to Google+.”
The matter of the ad read: “If you are lucky enough to have a Google+ account, add Michael Lee Johnson, Internet Geek, App Developer, Technological Virtuoso.”
The offending ad (Credit: Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
Facebook was not amused. You can guess what happened with the ad, can you? According to Johnson, posted the following via his Google+ account Facebook removed his ad, and banned him from running ads on the social media network altogether, (via TechCrunch):
LOL: “I recently ran a Google+ advertisement on Facebook that got all of my campaigns suspended. – Great.”
Facebook sent him the following message explaining why the ad was removed:
“Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.”
Since Facebook explicitly does not explains, it is not clear which rule-actually it could have been that Johnson broke. It is worth noting, however, that the company has a Refusal of Ads clause in the Facebook Advertising Guidelines:
Facebook ads allow any user of the site to create advertisements that target people based on location, age and interests for fairly reasonable rates. However, the social media leader Facebook is well within its rights to pull the ad. After all, ads promoting other social networking services are even prohibited in its Terms of Service. Item 6a of its Advertising Guidelines sys, “We may 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.”
Still, prohibiting all of Johnson’s campaigns seems a cruel touch. Has the social media giant really sunk low enough to eliminate what is essentially a paid plea for networking from its site just because it mentions an up-and-coming rival service?
It would seem that Facebook is on edge because of Google+’s success and wants to do everything it can to retain its massive base of users. 1,460 people currently have Johnson in their Google+ circles. However, there is not trace of Google+’s No. 1 personality, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among them.
Surprisingly, the new service, which is still in a budding phase, has already attracted 10 million users and will likely become a force to be reckoned with. It is no surprise that Facebook’s war against the service just got a little heated.