Facebook has essentially guaranteed that I will never, ever engage with any of their advertising partners. How did they do this? Easily. They did it by completely ignoring me.

For the past week, there has been a recurring ad being displayed on my profile sidebar advertising Sexy Singles in My Area™. It features a half-naked girl on a bed, and I’m honestly sick of seeing it. Every time it has appeared, I have clicked on the little thumbs-down icon. When the message pops up asking why I’m hating on the ad, I select “obscene” (or “pornographic” – I can’t remember what the available comment is). It disappears, but not for very long.

There’s two things very wrong with this. One is obvious: when I so clearly indicate to Facebook that I’m not interested in the ad, why does it keep showing up? I would think they would at the very least change the image and attempt to covertly display the same ad again. But it’s the exact same ad, every time. That, in and of itself, is lame.

But this is even more lame. Supposedly, Facebook has the ability to take content that you are viewing and display appropriate corresponding marketing material. It’s called “targeted advertising”, and it works pretty well in the real world. Apparently not so much in the world of Facebook. You would think, with the sheer amount of metadata available to them, Facebook might have the ability to check just one, small, seemingly insignificant field: Relationship Status.

You see, Facebook, I’m married. I’m not interested in Sexy Singles in My Area™, not even in the slightest. You’re telling me that you aren’t capable of checking just one, simple field on my profile and say “hey, maybe this guy isn’t interested in seeing half-naked chicks in his ‘targeted’ advertising”?

Of course, maybe Facebook is actually checking to see if men are married, and then displaying that sort of advertising to them on purpose. Maybe another one of their advertising partners is an online marriage counseling service.

In any case, Facebook has failed to advertise to me in a meaningful way. I have a whole other rant on how pathetic their “People You May Know” friend suggestor is. I’ll save that for another day.