3 ms·

This sounds like straight-up fraud to me. They promised one thing, and now, after an outage that was their own fault, they are intentionally warping and devalui

by Bud 5y ago

This sounds like straight-up fraud to me. They promised one thing, and now, after an outage that was their own fault, they are intentionally warping and devaluing the nature of the advertising product they sold to customers, so that instead of Facebook deservedly absorbing that loss, customers will absorb it, instead.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Not precisely fraud, but it is an example of the negatives of the product vendor (impressions, in this case) also owning the marketplace. It would be rational for advertisers to pull down their spend to avoid getting hit with devalued impressions. Ironically, if enough folks did, that could cause a panic, which would make things worse for FB.
mannykannot 5y ago
I am no fan at all of Facebook, and I would tend to regard the prospect of a dispute between it and its advertisers as a good thing, but here's a slightly-expanded version of the passage quoted in the article: "We can also confirm that ads did not deliver during the time the systems were offline, and advertisers were not and will not be billed for ads during the outage. Ads have now resumed delivery and some advertisers may see accelerated delivery as our services recover from the outage. We encourage advertisers to review your bids and budgets to ensure they accurately reflect your marketing goals." One way of looking at this is that Facebook is notifying its advertisers that the outage will affect how advertising is delivered in the following days, and if advertisers want something else to happen, they will have to make the changes themselves. Facebook could reasonably claim that it does not know how any given advertiser would prefer the situation to be handled. Of course, if it is expensive or inordinately difficult to make such adjustments, then Facebook would come across as dissembling (and not for the first time.)

by Bud 5y ago

shadowgovt 5y ago

Not precisely fraud, but it is an example of the negatives of the product vendor (impressions, in this case) also owning the marketplace. It would be rational for advertisers to pull down their spend to avoid getting hit with devalued impressions. Ironically, if enough folks did, that could cause a panic, which would make things worse for FB.

mannykannot 5y ago

I am no fan at all of Facebook, and I would tend to regard the prospect of a dispute between it and its advertisers as a good thing, but here's a slightly-expanded version of the passage quoted in the article: "We can also confirm that ads did not deliver during the time the systems were offline, and advertisers were not and will not be billed for ads during the outage. Ads have now resumed delivery and some advertisers may see accelerated delivery as our services recover from the outage. We encourage advertisers to review your bids and budgets to ensure they accurately reflect your marketing goals." One way of looking at this is that Facebook is notifying its advertisers that the outage will affect how advertising is delivered in the following days, and if advertisers want something else to happen, they will have to make the changes themselves. Facebook could reasonably claim that it does not know how any given advertiser would prefer the situation to be handled. Of course, if it is expensive or inordinately difficult to make such adjustments, then Facebook would come across as dissembling (and not for the first time.)