Facebook Disables All LOLapps Games and Apps
We started hearing reports midday on Friday that Critter Island had disappeared. It’s now a day later, and Critter Island is still down, along with dozens of other apps we have listed in AppData for developer LOLapps. All redirect to facebook.com.
All signs point to a complete suspention of LOLapps apps by Facebook. LOLapps is a large and stable developer on Facebook, with a slew of quiz and gift applications, as well as Critter Island and several older games. Before yesterday, it had over 14 million monthly active users, making it the twelfth-largest developer on Facebook, and just under a million daily actives.
Preliminary rumors we’ve heard suggest that the ban is real, and that LOLapps did not see it coming. CEO Arjun Sethi declined to comment in response to an email sent yesterday, and hasn’t provided any update since. Facebook has not responded at all.
Update: Facebook responded as this story was being posted: “We have disabled applications from LOLapps due to violations of our terms.”
Facebook has suspended quite a few developers since opening its platform; the largest recent example was Pencake, a company that had several massive quiz apps disabled overnight in July. However, almost every case of a complete ban targets a developers spamming Facebook users with non-game apps. Individual non-game apps are disabled quite often.
LOLapps, by contrast, made a point of its turn to game development in June, and appears to have focused mostly on Critter Island and upcoming titles since. The company is venture funded and generally well-known in the Silicon Valley development community.
Second update: While there have been some suggestions that LOLapps and others were suspended for exploiting loopholes that allowed them to auto-post to users’ feeds, such loopholes are discovered by developers from time to time, and upon using them are reprimanded by Facebook – it’s often part of the day-to-day operation of many developers.
Instead, we’ve also learned that these suspensions possibly relate to worries at Facebook about privacy, specifically relating to sharing data with third-party advertising services. More information may emerge soon. For now, the silence from both parties is enough to make other developers nervous.
Third update: We were correct about the involvement of third-party advertisers; a firm called RapLeaf is behind the LOLapps suspensions, according to a longer Wall Street Journal expose.
Final update: LOLapps is back on Facebook, after less than three days of suspension.
Since LOLapps was reinstated, we’ve written more about Facebook’s data market and policies:
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Shouldn’t have spammed so much, noobs.
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Not a good sign!! :(
Facebook shouldn’t ban all the apps, there are many reasons for saying this, one reason is that companies are making money via Facebook, and they will get a big loss after this ban! :(
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Yet another example of Facebook bullying companies building on top of their platform. Why does Facebook have to be such a bad partner? Anyone know if they at least warned LOLapps?
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One thing about the whole Facebook game-thing, it keeps people online for hours and hours. And, since network connections are bi-directional, you can both send, and receive information through them, well, there’s always the question of just how ethical the website operators are, and how ethical the software developers are. Especially in this day and age, you could theoretically be accessing something you enjoy, such as Facebook, or one of their games, or for that matter, any other website come to think of it, meanwhile ‘buddy’ down in the server room is reading your hard drive. Something to consider…on top of that, consider all the fun datamining you can do with the information that’s voluntarily provided by users on sites like Facebook. Welcome to the computer age! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.$$
It’s Sunday afternoon. :)
This kind of management will make that people are banning facebook, today Band of heroes, tomorrow Mafia wars game, whats next….
I am very dissapointed
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EH: You’re right. Instead of publishing separately on Inside Facebook, I’ve just updated this story. We’ll save the followup for a weekday.
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Like thousands of others, I AM disappointed that Facebook has decided to ban LOLapps and is targeting others as well.. Facebook is TOO BIG and TOO RESTRICTIVE of their policies except when it comes to sharing information about Facebook users themselves, ie altering privacy settings, removing options we’ve used before, etc. I think it’s time for another platform to take the lead and take users from Facebook. I would certainly switch… It’d be nice to have a Gamer Platform in which to enjoy using.. Any takers???
You can sign me a disgruntled Band of Heroes User…that no longer has access to it…
Agreed with Dan. The power Facebook has today is very much a MONOPOLOY. I wonder if any developers are talking to the FCC about these types of issues when they get shut down without warning from Facebook. There’s no alternative game platforms, and Facebook has complete control over a burgeoning multi-billion dollar industry. Smells like a monopolistic control that can stifle competition if you ask me.
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Good step. They should ban all the “I act like a 3 year old” apps.
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Facebook is bull-sheet. They can not business with peoples rights.
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LOLapps lives again!!
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