Facebook Acknowledging Google+ Threat by Taking Down Offensive Google+ ad From Site?

World's No.1 social networking site Facebook appears to have finally acknowledged the threat upstart Google+ (or Google Plus) poses, by taking down an offensive Google+ ad from its site.

Recently Michael Lee Johnson, a web developer, who opened a Google+ account discovered an ingenious way of expanding his friend circle - he advertised on Facebook, asking people to add him to their Google+ Circles.

The idea was pretty amusing but Facebook wasn't amused - it promptly pulled down his ads.

I recently ran a Google+ advertisement on Facebook that got all of my campaigns suspended. – Great, Johnson wrote on his Google+ page.

According to Facebook TOS, the site has the right to pull down any Facebook ad that promotes competing products.

However, Johnson, who had placed the ad on July 14 is upset.

The message from Failbook said the following:
Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions, he posted, adding, P.S; Facebook - You Suck.

Though Facebook is within its rights to delete Johnson's ad, its move has stirred a storm as many feel it highlights the growing threat Google+ poses to Facebook and Facebook is feeling the threat already.

And why not? Earlier this week, Google CEO Larry Page said that despite Google+ service remaining in a field trial mode, and with a lot of barriers to use it right now, it has over 10 million users now. In comparison, Facebook, which opened to the public in September 2006, had 30 million subscribers by March 2007. The site now has 750 million users.

Page said it was a great achievement and went on to say that the service has received a ton of activity with more than 1 billion items shared and received each day. You heard it right - 1 billion!

And Page goes on to say that We want to make products that everybody uses twice a day, like their toothbrush.

No wonder, Facebook's scared. However, Facebook seems to love Google+ too because its founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg has his own Google+ page. It's another story that Zuckerberg has approximately twice more followers than Page on Google+.

Incidentally, Facebook runs its own ads on Google AdWords. Will Google respond by banning Facebook ads? Only time will tell.

TechCrunch was the first to report on this and the comments from readers were quite interesting:

Facebook defense mode: ON!

That's harsh and that's not the sign of an industry pioneer..shame shame!

zuckerberg: you're a coward!

A coward (Zuckerberg) who's currently hanging out on Google+ *lol*

Facebook is too big and yet not big enough to take up the challenge?

Although Google has announced that we are NOT the competitor of Facebook.
but still facebook jealousy can easily be seen here. :)

Are Facebook worried about something?

facebook is jealous.

Grow up facebook.

Has the public just now delivered its verdict?