Although it took a long time and a mountain of criticism, Facebook is finally going to be getting rid of its vastly unpopular Sponsored Stories feature.
"Facebook will sunset the creation of sponsored stories," the social network told developers in a blog post on Thursday. "Domain and open graph sponsored stories will no longer be allowed to be created. Existing domain and open graph sponsored stories will cease to have delivery after April 9th.
According to PC Mag, Facebook began rolling out Sponsored Stories in 2011. They first appeared on the sidebar and then on the ticker, the real-time menu on the right side of the homepage that displays almost all of your friend's Facebook activity. What started to annoy Facebook users was when the paid ads began showing up as though they were the content of people's friends or pages that people had Liked.
According to PC Mag, Facebook had to pay $20 million to settle a class-action lawsuit related to the feature. A settlement included about 150 million Facebook users who were each entitled to $15 from the company for a valid claim.
The 2011 suit maintained that Facebook "improperly uses the names, photographs, likenesses and identities of plaintiffs to generate substantial profits for Facebook." They argued that the company had been using its members as unpaid spokespeople for its advertisers. Reports say that through the sponsored stories, the social network had found a way to make "Facebook members in the United States into their marketers, but without any compensation," according to the writing in the lawsuit.
According to the Huffington Post, the ads show how your Facebook friend sinteract with a sponsored page, app or event. If one of your Facebook friends "likes" a company or checks into a music venue or restaurant, his or her action would appear on their profile pictures as an advertisement in the feeds of their Facebook friends.
Finally this feature will be completely done away with by April 9th.
