Right now, Facebook lets Messenger ad bots from brands like Expedia and HP help you make a purchase, but they can’t try to sell you a new product. However, a policy change means those automated assistants will soon be able to send subscription messages, ads and promotions for services like makeup consultations. If you’re worried about spam, Facebook emphasized that the user is in...
Facebook can’t win the war it started on ad blockers last week. So say Princeton assistant professor Arvind Narayanan and undergraduate Grant Storey, who have created an experimental ad “highlighter” for the Chrome browser to prove it. When you have Facebook Ad Highlighter installed, ads in the News Feed are grayed out and written over with the words “THIS IS AN AD.” Facebook announced...
Another day, another case of Facebook silencing a video that it should have left up. A politician in Hong Kong says that Facebook banned him from the site for 24 hours for a “terms of service violation” after he posted a video of him confronting men who had been following him around for weeks. The video uploaded by Leung on August 7 showed him...
On August 9th 2016, Facebook issued a press release stating they intend to change the way they deal with adblocking on their web site. Andrew Bosworth, VP of Ads & Business Platform for Facebook states: “We’ve designed our ad formats, ad performance and controls to address the underlying reasons people have turned to ad blocking software. When we asked people about why they used ad...
Adblock Plus launched a workaround to Facebook’s ad block bypass today that ham-handedly removes posts from friends and Pages, not just ads, according to a statement provided by Facebook to TechCrunch. “We’re disappointed that ad blocking companies are punishing people on Facebook as these new attempts don’t just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages. This isn’t a good experience for people and we plan...
In a very quick turnaround, the Adblock Plus community has already blocked the intrusive Facebook ads. Yesterday we posted a story that Facebook was going to force using on desktops to see ads whether they had an adblocker or not. We promised that the open source community would have a solution very soon, and, frankly, they’ve beaten even our own expectations. A new filter...
Facebook is making the HTML of its web ads indistinguishable from organic content so it can slip by adblockers. But in exchange for taking away this option for controlling ads from people, its allowing them to opt-out of ad targeting categories and Custom Audience customer lists uploaded by advertisers. Today all desktop users will see an announcement atop the News Feed explaining that while...
Facebook Inc.’s future cash flows and results could suffer a major blow if it loses a battle over new U.S. tax liabilities related to the transfer of its global operations to Ireland in 2010. The Internal Revenue Service delivered a notice of deficiency to the social media giant Wednesday for $3 billion to $5 billion, plus interest and penalties, based on the agency’s audit...
Facebook admitted it briefly blocked links to Wikileaks files containing internal Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails. The block seems to be the result of another algorithm accident that may have incorrectly determined the links to be malicious or spam. Facebook Chief Security Officer says the company has fixed the error, after receiving heavy criticism from WikiLeaks. This isn’t the first time Facebook has accidentally...
Facebook appears to have a major tax headache on its hands after the Internal Revenue Service sued the social network on Wednesday to force it to comply with summonses related to a 2010 asset transfer. According to documents the IRS filed in San Francisco federal court, the agency suspects Facebook and its accounting firm, Ernst & Young, understated the value of intangible assets transferred...
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