14 DAY TRIAL // Many Facebook app developers are finding themselves confronted with a tough choice. As of this month, they can no longer include AdSense ads in their applications, since Google is not on a new list of approved partners.
Since AdSense is the world's largest ad network, many developers are now forced to change their providers, quit Facebook, or face the threat of their apps being banned from the platform.
The move has been a long time coming. Earlier, Facebook had announced that developers will only be able to use ad providers from a list of approved partners.
These partners would have to apply for approval and have to meet several criteria, some of which can be pretty drastic, such as providing the name of employees and contractors on request and responding to any inquiry from Facebook immediately.
Of course, many of these policies are in place to ensure that user data is not leaked or abused by apps or ad providers in any way. But they can make life harder than it needs to be for ad networks.
It's unclear why Google is not on the current list, whether it's because negotiations failed, it simply chose not to bother requesting approval, or Facebook wouldn't approve it.
Facebook hasn't specifically said it will ban apps that use Google, but those apps are in violation of the policies and could be removed at any time.
The company says that there are plenty of options to choose from, there are over 60 approved providers at this point. That should be enough for most developers, but it's not ideal.
Google has a trusted brand and product and developers may want to use just one provider for their apps, websites and so on. There are other factors as well, for example some ad providers only use PayPal, which is not an option in some countries. Still, the list is not fixed, other providers can be added and Google may be included yet.