Enhancement of user experience is the first and foremost factor most web companies consider. Whether it’s a search engine, a social networking site or a plain old blog, web developers try their hardest to make the website appealing and less cluttered. After Google and many other web services, Facebook has announced today that it is updating its Ad Controls and Ad Blocking services.
Facebook believes that by giving more control over ads, it will be able to make the user experience richer and much more appealing. The company is updating its Ad Control policy, making it easier to use ad preferences. This means you will now easily be able to toggle a certain type of ad off in case you don’t want to see it again. Not just this, ads related to a certain interest– traveling, animals, celebrities, for instance– can also be controlled. Just head on to your ad preferences and toggle the topic off.
Facebook will now also allow you to stop seeing ads from businesses or organizations who have added you to their customer lists.
Ad Blocking 101
Ad Blocking is a service that allows users to stop ads from showing up when they visit certain websites. Most users prefer to use ad blockers because of bad ads– disruptive ads that the user has no interest in or are covering the screen in annoying ways.
While using ad blocking software is a good idea, most ads could actually be beneficial for the user and avoiding them could be a mistake. Facebook hopes that it’s newly enhanced and power-rich controls over ads will be enough to satisfy users and stop the practice of using ad blockers.
Additionally, Facebook says that it will not be paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads that they show. Instead, they’ll begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use these software, in time.
Some ad blocking companies accept money in exchange for showing ads that they previously blocked — a practice that is at best confusing to people and that reduces the funding needed to support the journalism and other free services that we enjoy on the web,
writes Andrew Bosworth, VP, Ads & Business Platform.
Facebook is one of those free services, and ads support our mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected. Rather than paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads we show — as some of these companies have invited us to do in the past — we’re putting control in people’s hands with our updated ad preferences and our other advertising controls.
he adds
