Facebook May Now Ban Bad Businesses From Advertising

For years, Facebook has envisioned its apps as venues where businesses can interact intimately with their customers.

Until now, purchasing some too-good-to-be-true cheap clothes or a weird smartphone case through a Facebook ad usually ends in disappointment, with no way to provide feedback about your new shirt that makes you look like a store brand anime character. While Facebook can’t stop you from buying a t-shirt or a shoe with a few missing stitches or few opening, but it will now do more to prevent others from following in your footsteps by banning shoddy businesses from selling more and more crap through its platform.

Facebook has launched a new tool for its users that will identify ads with inaccurate information or misrepresented products. The tool is designed to let people review businesses that they’ve made a purchase from, Facebook said in a blog post.

“We spoke with people who have purchased things from Facebook advertisers, and the two biggest frustrations we heard were that people don’t like ads that quote inaccurate shipping times or misrepresent products,” the company said.

Facebook and the businesses advertising on it have been under scrutiny in the past for selling goods at an exorbitant markup—goods that are poorly made and take weeks instead of days to arrive. As of today, Facebook, is letting users leave feedback for businesses after they’ve purchased a product, to alert both other users and Facebook about stores selling shoddy goods.

The blog post explains that, the number of ads for the particular bad business will reduce if a high volumes of negative feedback is received and will eventually ban advertisers if their feedback ratings do not improve. It will also offer solutions for businesses to improve their customer experience and suggest they provide more transparency when it comes to topics like return policies and shipping times.

January this year, Facebook banned ads from cryptocurrency ICOs (initial coin offerings) and has clamped down on other finance-related advertisers. But it seems that all advertisers could be under greater scrutiny. The new global policy, which is now being rolled out, will use customer feedback to provide guidance to advertisers to let them know of problems. But, if the problems persist and aren’t actioned, then Facebook could ban the advertiser completely.

To find the tool, click on Ads Activity tab, then select the ad you clicked on, and hit the “Leave Feedback” button, complete the questionnaire to voice your frustrations. For the most part, this policy seems like a great idea. Most people are accustomed to leaving feedback after shopping online and this new policy will allow the use of that feedback to help advertisers improve their service is a good idea.