The Wall Street Journal has revealed that Google has decided to cut its ads from Orkut as a result of “complaints in Brazil about offensive content.” A Brazilian nonprofit group, SaferNet, “has alleged that Orkut contains child pornography and other illegal content on some users’ pages.” Apparently Facebook is having similar issues but with sex predators. Additionally, Facebook had advertisers (Vodafone, Orange and Virgin) pull their advertisements after they appeared next to a group for the British National Party.

If you take a look at most of the ads on the Facebook applications currently, none of the advertisements are from large companies. Right now most ads are being used to cross-promote other applications. The Wall Street Journal article states that “content posted by users is unpredictable, and companies run the risk of having their ads appear next to embarrassing images or text.” As a result, many advertisers are are straying away from the sites. At least that’s what the Wall Street Journal claims. I have seen plenty of large companies on Facebook but apparently a larger number are keeping away.

Does your company advertise on social networks? If not, would they?