Facebook has punished several studios responsible for its recent user privacy breach troubles, blocking LOLapps and other developers' access to viral communication channels for six months.
The social network temporarily pulled LOLapps' titles from its site three weeks ago shortly before a Wall Street Journal report showed that many popular titles shared User IDs with developers -- a problem the company describes as "an issue with the way that web browsers work".
It was also revealed that some developers, including LOLapps, passed on that user information to marketing companies, which was a violation of Facebook's terms. LOLapps said it resolved the issue and terminated its relationship with the ad firm, and its games eventually returned to the site.
In a post detailing Facebook's "zero tolerance for data brokers", platform engineer Mike Vernal says the company is taking this policy violation seriously, and is restricting access to viral channels, such as the ability to make wall posts or send notifications/invitations, for studios that sold user IDs.
"We are taking action against these developers by instituting a six-month full moratorium on their access to Facebook communication channels, and we will require these developers to submit their data practices to an audit in the future to confirm that they are in compliance with our policies," said Vernal.
Though he didn't specify the affected companies, Vernal said this impacts "fewer than a dozen, mostly small developers, none of which are in the top 10 applications on Facebook Platform". Inside Facebook found that LOLapps, My Friend Web, Mappdev, and My Top Fans have all seen communication channels in their apps limited.
Ravenwood Fair, LOLapps' newest game that released after the user ID controversy, is the only title from the San Francisco-based developer that hasn't suffered the six-month ban. It's unclear whether future releases from LOLapps will have their access to communication channels blocked.
With most of their paths for virally promoting and cross-promoting its games blocked, LOLapps and other penalized developers will find it difficult expanding or even keeping their apps' userbases. LOLapps currently has more than 15.8 million total monthly active users across all its releases.
Perhaps this will provide these developers with an incentive to research alternative means of promotion and player 2 player interactions.
Something else that makes me wonder is that the same WSJ article found several Zynga apps doing the same and yet no Zynga apps are being punished. I guess that just shows developers of Facebook apps and games that they need to be extremely high profile to be above the law.
I agree with you. Zynga was recently reported at a higher value then mega publisher EA. As gaming becomes one of the major profit cows for Facebook, Zynga is without a doubt #1 in that spectrum. So from a sales stand point, punishing Zygna will punish facebook's profits. It's really shady but if I was CFO, It's something I'd consider and address differently.
Who knows, we could all be wrong. Maybe Facebook is in the process of digging through the corporate barriers of Zynga to regulate them as well. We'll see.
They probably trained Zynga how to do it in the first place. I doubt we'll see any of the developers who have signed on to 3+ year contracts to exclusively use Facebook's new virtual currency in their apps getting punished any time soon.
"An issue with the way browsers work" ??! No, it's an issue with the way that the development companies responsible have no moral compass whatsoever.
I'll admit that I'm playing Treasure Isle and Cafe World at the moment and I want to wait and see if this whole thing about Zynga is indeed true. If it does turn out to be true as you pointed out, Chris, then not only I will remove and block the game applications, but I will also let my friends know about Zynga's actions. I was already considering quitting those two games at some point anyway due to them having some bugs/flaws and showing too many pop-ups within the game, but I want a solid confirmation on Zynga's breach of rules before I quit the aforementioned games as I want to warn my friends about the whole mess and get them to quit playing the Zynga games along with me. Telling my friends about Zynga's other ethical malpractices will not be enough to convince them to quit the games. As for Zynga's relationship with Facebook, I'm not going to speculate on that just yet due to past information/history between Facebook and game applications.
For the questions above on Zynga and why they receive different treatment: Pincus was one of the original signficant investors in Facebook. Pincus runs Zynga. Zynga has, effectively, a monopoly on FB games. See what I'm getting at here?
I still stand by the last sentence of my last comment, but I take your word for it and it sounds like that you may be onto something. In other words, I see what you are getting at, and if what you say is indeed the case, then this means that it will be tougher to prove that Zynga has broken privacy rules. Monopolists can get away with almost anything.
I was sure I'd read Zynga mentioned when this first came up, only to assumed I'd made a mistake on reading this. Guess not, it's just preferential treatment for the gilded darlings.
Something else that makes me wonder is that the same WSJ article found several Zynga apps doing the same and yet no Zynga apps are being punished. I guess that just shows developers of Facebook apps and games that they need to be extremely high profile to be above the law.
I agree with you. Zynga was recently reported at a higher value then mega publisher EA. As gaming becomes one of the major profit cows for Facebook, Zynga is without a doubt #1 in that spectrum. So from a sales stand point, punishing Zygna will punish facebook's profits. It's really shady but if I was CFO, It's something I'd consider and address differently.
Who knows, we could all be wrong. Maybe Facebook is in the process of digging through the corporate barriers of Zynga to regulate them as well. We'll see.
"An issue with the way browsers work" ??! No, it's an issue with the way that the development companies responsible have no moral compass whatsoever.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31026/
So we all must be wondering: why on earth is Zynga not being punished?
Something sleazy is going on here: there are different rules for different developers.
You can't ban Zynga, they make a lot of dough for Facebucks.