Facebook: No Sponsored Status Updates Allowed

On Twitter, your status update is yours for the selling (for now). In fact, services like Sponsored Tweets help you do just that, though not without creating a stir in the Twitterverse. Many users are vehemently opposed to seeing paid advertisements in their Twitter stream.

Until now, Facebook has stayed neutral on the paid-for-status-updates issue. In fact, we’ve seen a service called Status Plug give Facebook Page Admins the ability to sell their updates. Should the just proposed changes to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilitybecome the status quo, however, you’ll be bound by the new terms of service from outright selling your status update.

The new pending policy on status updates is in section 4 of the agreement and reads, “You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).”

We’re actually a fan of the new rule, and think it could ensure that Facebook users maintain a level of integrity that could be compromised on Twitter by services like Sponsored Tweets. What interests us more, though, is that Facebook felt the need to explicitly spell this out. Have they been watching the negative backlash directed at Twitter advertising platforms like IZEA? Are they concerned about the purity of status updates?

Or, is this more a move to accompany Facebook real-time search? Think about it, with public status updates and site-wide search, an opportunistic Facebooker could sell their updates and reach a wider audience, possibly polluting the whole ecosystem.

Facebook has obviously learned their lesson from the last time they changed their TOS, so you can review all the proposed changes before they go into effect. You can even become a fan of the Site Governance Page to weigh in with your comments before August 18.