CHENGDU, Feb.14 (NBD) -- On February 8, Facebook issued a ban to its advertising agencies, asking them to suspend all advertisements for Chinese utility apps focusing on smartphone clean-up, memory reclamation, and battery optimization.

Among the 20 companies, Baidu and 360 are also in the list.

Facebook claimed many of these advertisements deceived users, for example, by telling them their phone storage is full when it actually is not. Removing ads for Chinese smartphone utility Apps showed its determination to protect its brand identity.

Last year, Facebook's annual revenue totaled 27.6 billion US dollars, and most of them come from ads. According to its financial report of the fourth quarter of 2016, the company's advertising income from Asia Pacific was 1.337 billion US dollars, accounting for 15.49%. The suspension may adversely affect its future revenue.

Wang Jian,CEO of Appcoach, noted that over the past few years, Chinese anti-virus software, and input methods have gained good performance in the overseas market, such as UC Browser. Since then, many small tech companies also start to eye on the overseas market. As competition in the international market grows fiercer, irregularities emerge.

Removing ads from Facebook may hurt their overseas competiveness, but it is necessary to do so, added Wang. A Chinese staff from IPG Mediabrand also warmed that startups have to seek legal means to gain popularity because irregularities can cost them dearly, especially on the overseas market.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn