Before Facebook was allowed to sell its shares on the public market, federal regulators had a few questions about the social media company’s advertising opportunities, a strategic business partnership, and how it shared users’ data, according to correspondence made public today.
After Facebook filed its initial registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, agency officials sought clarity from the company in how it planned to monetize its advertising. The federal agency suggested the company provide regulators—and, ultimately, potential stockholders—a detailed breakdown of the overall number of ads shown on the site, the number of advertisers, the average price per ad, revenue per user, and trends in display and performance-based advertising for each of the periods presented.