Facebook Messenger Gets Ad Bots.
Facebook has updated its chatbot policies to permit AI-controlled ad bots onto Facebook Messenger. Now Messenger bots are permitted to canvas products to a user, send user promotions and involve in subscription-based conversations in a rethinking of the rules.
If we are concerned about spam, Facebook has emphasized that the user is in control. Also, no promotional content is allowed, Engadget reported on Thursday.
"All conversations between businesses and people must be initiated by the person receiving the messages, who can then mute or block the business at any time," Facebook Product Manager Seth Rosenberg said in a Facebook blog post.
Ad bots are likely to follow the same rules of engagement like other Messenger bots. They cannot send messages to users who have never used their service, preventing our inbox from being filled with promotional campaigns. A bot will only be able to contact the user if a user started the conversation. A user can mute or block it, removing the thread entirely.
"We continue to put people in control of their experiences in Messenger," said Facebook Product Manager Seth Rosenberg. "All conversations between businesses and people must be initiated by the person receiving the messages, who can then mute or block the business at any time."
The new policy also contains the overview of a 24-hour window for messaging with bots. When we send a message to a bot or business, it has 24 hours to reply within a standard thread. If the time finishes, it will not be able to contact us until we re-engage with the conversation.
The subscribers to any brand's Messenger feed will get messages unprompted and more regularly. If subscribers reply to a message, the conversation will switch into a standard messaging mode.
"Existing companies using the service have three months to comply with the new rules for standard messaging, which are now in effect. For firms who want to start, Facebook promises to review new bots within five days," the report noted.
The bad update is that conversations that contain ad bots won't be end-to-end encrypted, even if more complex encryption comes to Messenger in the futureThe new subscription options are beginning in beta for companies involved in news, productivity and personal trackers.With this service, Facebook wants to monetize its one billion monthly Messenger users.
There are apparently 18,000 bots on the service and 23,000 companies using Facebook's deep-learning tech that allows natural language recognition.
Facebook is desperate for bots to avoid being linked with spam. It’s aware that breaking that linking with many users will be difficult, based on past experiences of automated support lines, chat rooms, and news alerts. Bots are basically a development of these services so Facebook wants to prove they've managed to shed the annoyance of their forbears. The revision of its platform plans permits it to more efficiently do this while giving developers the ability to begin creating bots today.
Bots still have a long approach to go before they become ordinary. They could make it simpler to communicate with services and businesses but only if Facebook gets it right from the start. The updated policies will help to protection users on the Messenger platform, in turn defending bots from the connotations of interruption, spam, and frustration that they could soon obtain.