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Facebook launched ‘Sponsored Stories‘ in 2011. Sponsored Stories are a type of ad unit that appear on a user’s news feed when a friend engages with a certain brand that pays for the exposure. However, lately, Facebook has announced that it will kill the Sponsored Stories by April.

In 2011, Facebook faced a “class action lawsuit” over sponsored stories, which accused the company of violating user privacy with its ad practices. The lawsuit, later, not only eventually led to a $20 million settlement, but also it compelled Facebook to add opt-out features for sponsored stories, which is estimated to have cost Facebook more than $100 million in lost revenue. And after that, last year in June, Facebook announced that it decided to get rid of some of its ad units in an effort to eliminate some redundancies.

But on Jan 9, Facebook announced in a blog post to developers that “Existing domain and open graph sponsored stories will cease to have delivery after April 9.”

Facebook said, “As announced in June of last year, we’re bringing the best of Sponsored Stories — social context — to all ads. Since this update makes Sponsored Stories redundant, we will no longer offer them as a stand-alone ad unit for marketers. Social context will continue to appear with all ads where eligible. Our social advertising honors the audience that people choose, so nobody will see information in social context for an ad that they couldn’t already see.”

Source: CNET

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