“Like” it, “poke” it, but don’t post your latest sweepstakes on Facebook without some serious thought. Your contest could be violating the site’s promotions rules.
It’s unclear how closely Facebook is monitoring illegal sweepstakes, although the company has come down hard on a few mostly foreign companies. Still, the threat of enforcement looms for any business that tries improperly to boost its brand among Facebook fanatics.
Facebook is now flooded with ads and promotions, in part because companies smartly realize the collective spending power of the 800 million users who log on to the site every month. The social networking giant ...