Angry Users Leave Facebook Ads in Limbo

Facebook is in a bind, Owen Thomas writes on Valleywag. The social network has succeeded in boosting its membership to 120 million, partly by keeping spam to a minimum. But to make money, Facebook needs advertising—which means allowing app developers to bug users with spam on Facebook's News Feed. But when the site allowed it, users got upset and dropped off.

Now app developers are wary of Facebook, which seemed to censor them arbitrarily. Some apps, like iLike and Causes, were allowed to continue, while others were yanked for privacy or spam violations. Thomas suggests Facebook clarify its policy by handing out a rate card to companies to let them run spam on News Feed. "There's no easy answer," he admits. "If there were, Mark Zuckerberg might be more than a paper billionaire by now."