Facebook is planning to provide advertisers with the ability to control and target the placement of their ads on the social network in a bid to win back UK advertisers who ceased advertising after some of their ads featured on the profile page of the far-right British National Party (BNP).

"We have to build some technology in order to provide some additional controls and we really excel at that," says Facebook chief operating officer Owen Van Natta. "I expect that most, if not all, of those advertisers are going to be coming back on board if they haven't already."

The UK Government followed major companies such as Vodafone, First Direct, Halifax, Prudential, Virgin Media and the AA in removing their ads, saying they were unhappy over the lack of control and feared any association of their brands with the BNP or any other Facebook member that could have negative implications. Facebook COO Owen Van Natta says his company was taken off-guard by the issue and was distressed by the extensive media coverage that could have been avoided if the concerns had been raised previously. He acknowledges a need for immediate action to try and win the clients back and reassure current advertisers.

Van Natta says that the solutions being looked at will not affect the content of user pages, allowing the BNP or other users to maintain their profiles providing they do not breach the site terms of service. Instead, Van Natta says that a technological solution is being developed to allow advertisers greater control over how their content is displayed, but as yet no concrete details are available for disclosure. Forward to colleagues