Los Angeles — It seems the two Silicon Valley biggies, Facebook and Google are not going to give up their ground so easily as the war rages on. Late last year, Google surprised the online community by suddenly blocked Facebook from being able to import contacts from new users’ Gmail accounts. And now, the social media mogul Facebook has decided to entirely shut Google out of their social network. The former demands its app-developers to use only in-app advertising from approved vendors other than Google, it appears.
Although, Facebook is not necessarily targeting Google, but it is an obvious omission. Of course, it is no surprise that Google is not on the list.
This could be the culmination of the blows the two web titans – Facebook and Google – have been exchanging for quite a while now for the future of the web. It has only worsened since then as the two colossi have poached one another’s employees and actively bid against each other for important strategic acquisitions like Twitter.
In a developer blog post, the social media network said it has modified its rules and now requires that apps with in-app advertising can only use Facebook-approved companies, or companies willing to sign off on the company’s Advertising guidelines. Surprisingly, the list has two glaring omissions: Adsense and Double Click, both owned by the largest advertising company on the Web: Google.
A spokesperson for Facebook said, “We are continuing to work with various ad providers and will add them to the list as they sign the terms. Note that the policy does not go into effect for a few more weeks.” Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Google declined to comment.
The CEO of an approved ad provider commented that Facebook’s efforts to “restore control and authority of how third-party companies work within its platform” make sense and are generally good for users.
Allison Hendrix, member of the Facebook app verification team has made it clear that if the ad provider of the app-developer is not on the list provided by Facebook, they may contact the ad-provider to determine whether they want to sign the newly laid terms.
If you happen to be a Facebook app developer and your app is serving up ads from Google, you have got until February 28th to change your ways or you are going to get booted.
Why is not Google on the list? Guessing from a statement by Facebook, it may be because Google found Facebook’s terms bizarre and unreasonable.
Given how important security is to Google, is it any wonder that they did not want to “sign terms” with Facebook? While the brawl is good, this war between Google and Facebook may be getting out of hand.