By Andrew Bosworth, VP, Ads and Business Platform
Much of the news and information we read online, along with the games, videos, and other things we enjoy, are supported by advertising. More people have access to more content than ever before – often free of charge – because the publishers and developers behind our favorite websites and apps rely on advertising to pay the bills.
However, one of the things we’ve heard from people is that many of the ads they see are annoying, distracting, or misleading. We think companies can do better, and that’s why we’ve been focused on improving ads both on and off Facebook.
For example, we introduced Facebook Audience Network two years ago to help publishers and developers support their services by showing relevant, high quality ads to people who visit their websites and apps. But in the past, we’ve only shown ads in these places to people who have Facebook accounts. Today, we’re expanding Audience Network so publishers and developers can show better ads to everyone – including those who don’t use or aren’t connected to Facebook. (Update on December 21, 2020 at 5:05AM PT: Information in this paragraph about ads on Facebook’s Audience Network is outdated and did not apply to all geographic regions.)
We’ve all had this experience. You open a news article on your phone’s web browser and the page takes unusually long to load. Once it appears, the article is blocked by an ad. You might see a tiny “x” to hide the ad, but if you tap in the wrong spot, you get redirected to an app store or another website. It can be unclear who’s behind the ad or even if the website you’ve been directed to is safe to visit.
Advertising may be here to stay, but bad advertising like this doesn’t have to. That’s why we’re working to provide a better online advertising experience for everyone: people, publishers, and advertisers.
How We Offer Better Ads and Put People in Control
While more than a hundred companies already serve interest-based advertising on websites and apps today, we offer a better experience because we care about the integrity of Facebook ads.
Ads are reviewed against our standards and to ensure they are as respectful of people’s experience as possible. For example, we don’t permit ads that include sound unless you interact with them and we prohibit deceptive ads and ads for unsafe products and services. We’ve developed technology to determine when someone clicks on an ad on a mobile device by accident, so you don’t get taken to a website or app you didn’t mean to visit.
We also offer everyone controls over the ads they see, including tools to opt out of online interest-based advertising. If you have an account, you can do this directly from your Facebook settings, and we honor your choice wherever you use Facebook.
Your ad preferences also help us show you better ads on and off Facebook. If you have an account, you can edit your ad preferences to tell us if you want to see ads based on specific interests, like travel or television. Starting today, you can opt out of seeing ads on apps and websites not offered by Facebook based on your ad preferences. You can do this by visiting your Facebook settings or tapping the AdChoices icon next to an Audience Network ad.
Together, we hope these efforts will help improve the online advertising experience for everyone. You can learn more about Facebook ads in a new section of Privacy Basics as well as in our updated Cookies Policy.