14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook killed an ad in which a user, Michael Lee Johnson, was asking people to add him to their circles in Google+. It wasn't promoting Google+ directly, but it was a mention of the competing social network seen on Facebook's pages, so the company took the decision to have the ad removed.
Understandably, any interaction between Facebook and Google+ gets 100 times more attention than it normally would, at this early stage, so there have been plenty of people weigh in and even accusing Facebook of being afraid of the Google+ "beast."
But, realistically, what else was Facebook going to do, it's not going to actively promote a competitor. And Google+ is doing quite well without Facebook's help.
The Facebook ad read: "If you’re lucky enough to have a Google+ account, add Michael Lee Johnson, Internet Geek, App Developer, Technological Virtuoso."
The social network didn't like having competitors promoted on its network and removed the ad, banning Johnson from using Facebook advertising as well.
The company didn't say exactly why it banned the ad, but said that it was a violation of its advertising Terms of Use.
"Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances," Facebook told Johnson.
"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," it added.
Facebook does include in its advertising guidelines a part saying it can refuse ads at will and may do so if the ads promote a competing product.
"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," the guidelines read.
All of this doesn't really prove anything. Facebook may be a bit worried about Google+, but the freshly launched social network only has over 10 million users.
And even if Facebook is worried, it probably has bigger plans to counter the threat rather than removing some user's ads.