Facebook has announced the two (2) following important updates to its Platform Policies, which take effect on November 5, 2014. Facebook's announcement states:
- Games which include mandatory or optional in-app charges must now disclose this in their app's description, either on Facebook or other platforms it supports. This is to give people a clear indication that your game may charge people during gameplay.
- You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app's Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.
The latter update will have important ramifications for promotions that run through an app, which either require users to "like" a Page as a pre-condition to participate, or provide users with a reward (such as a contest entry) for "liking" a Page. At present, it is unclear whether a promotion that was in-market prior to the update, and is scheduled to extend through November 5, 2014, will be "grandfathered" or whether an amendment to the promotion's terms and conditions will be required to comply with the update. Stay tuned.
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