You may have read that Facebook changed its policy for third-party advertisers and the use of user photos. Facebook issued a statement on the company blog denying any such changes.

"The advertisements that started these rumors were not from Facebook but placed within applications by third parties," says Facebook’s manager of policy communications, Barry Schnitt. "Those ads violated our policies by misusing profile photos, and we already required the removal of those deceptive ads from third-party applications before this rumor began spreading."

Facebook has gone so far as to shut down Facebook access to two entire advertising networks because they did not comply with the social network’s policies. They were evidently warned too, because Facebook says they "failed to correct their practices."

The company encourages users to report ads that they believe violate its policies. For Facebook’s own ads, users can simply click the thumbs-down icon for "dislike this ad". For third-party ads, users can click the "report" link at the bottom of the page.

There have been some complaints circulating throughout the blogosphere about user photos appearing in Facebooks own ads. Schnitt addresses this as well. "We’ve run advertisements from our own advertising system for more than a year that let your friends know if you have a direct connection with a product or service, in the same way that your friends learn through your News Feed if you’re connected with another friend or an organization’s Facebook Page," he says.

Facebook says that social ads always require that users have taken "express action" to indicate their connections with the product and that no data will be shared with the third party.

An important figure at Google may be about to leave, according to a new report.  Dick Costolo, the cofounder and CEO of FeedBurner, is supposed to depart the corporation sometime this week.

Michael Arrington apparently confirmed the news today, and with regards to what Costolo has been up to since the $100 million FeedBurner acquisition, continued, "He currently reports to Neal Mohan, an exec in the Ads group, as the group product manager for social ads."

What Costolo will do next remains unknown.  He may want to start another company, join an existing entity, or pursue some big idea.

Or, as a few select tweets of his sort of imply, Costolo (who’s toured Australia, Singapore, and the UK as part of an improv comedy team) may just be preparing to spend more time with his family and generally take it easy. 

Regardless, since Google acquired FeedBurner almost exactly two years ago (the official announcement was made on June 1st, 2007), this development doesn’t say much about the search giant’s ability to retain talent; it looks like Costolo’s quitting within days of some contract’s expiration date.