Facebook admits Beacon ad serving error

VENICE - Facebook has admitted that it made big mistakes in launching its Beacon ad serving system last year.

Speaking at the Venice Festival of Media, Mike Murphy, global vice president of ad sales at Facebook, said: "We absolutely made mistakes - we didn't communicate it well, we didn't ask customers and we had an opt out rather than an opt in."

Facebook has since made changes to Beacon, a system which allows advertising to be targeted according to user interests, which include making it opt in for its users.

Defending Facebook's actions, which led to a debate over internet privacy, Murphy added: "We're not just copying an old, broken model so we're going to make mistakes.

"But we will look more closely at what works in 'lab' work with marketers."

Delegates at the Festival provided Facebook and its social networking rivals with a boost during an interactive vote, sponsored by Synovate.

Some 39 per cent of delegates said social marketing would perform an "important" role in their advertising and marketing activity over the next year, with 10 per cent saying it would play a "critical" role.

However, 22 per cent were still unsure about what kind of role of social networking would play going forward.