Ad Networks on the Facebook Platform

In the middle of December, Facebook released new “Platform Terms for Advertising Providers” to better regulate the ad networks that Facebook developers are allowed to work with. Facebook now provides a list of “Ad Providers” (or networks) that comply with these terms in an effort to “better serve your monetization needs while developing your application.” Developers are actually prohibited from working with networks that do not appear on this list.

Here’s the list of Ad Networks ->
http://developers.facebook.com/adproviders

I was pleased to see that three of the networks on the list use HasOffers for tracking, and even more of those networks have expressed interest in HasOffers over the last couple months.  Way to go on compliance, guys!

I thought I would jump into a few of the terms that each ad network must agree to to show how transparent these companies really have to be.

The first point that stood out was #5 which states that “the Advertising Provider agrees to provide to Facebook the names, email addresses, and business addresses of all principals.”  It goes on to say that the network must provide Facebook with names and contact information for any employees and/or contractors as well as any developers they are working with on the Facebook platform.

In addition to this disclosure, there is a pretty healthy list of compliance requirements including immediately responding to requests from Facebook, disclosing any intent to associate with a company prohibited from operating on Facebook, providing a clear method for users to make complaints, and making all content served on the Facebook Platform available to Facebook.

I have no problems with any of these regulations, but I can see how they might be somewhat difficult for some networks.  Not only is there quite a bit of red tape but there is a pretty direct effort of Facebook to exclude businesses whose associations or relationships are extremely broad and loosely monitored.  However, I think this is really exciting for the networks on that list who have the agility, transparency, and technology to comply with the worlds largest publisher and online developer platform.  I hope to see great things from the companies on this ad network list in 2011.