Danish sites have been blocked without explanation by Facebook (FB), preventing the sites from sharing links with others on the networking site in a move that has exasperated companies and bloggers who use FB as a core part of their visitor and revenue strategy.

“This is costing revenue and bottom line because Facebook is amputating the visibility that so much energy has been used to build up. Facebook has pulled the carpet out from under these companies,” Social Media Specialist Janne Schmidt tells DR News.

Daniel Laursen who runs the now blocked www.trendsonline.dk website tells DR that Facebook “decides who can live or die”.

Over the past two months, Laursen has unsuccessfully attempted to get Facebook to remove the ban. Nor has he received any explanation as to why his site has been blocked. Innumerable telephone calls and 50 e-mails later, Laursen is still none the wiser, receiving only a standard e-mail that Facebook does not respond to individual cases.

“It’s grotesque and people should seriously consider that if you rely on Facebook for a major part of your business you simply don’t know where you are tomorrow. No-one can be sure,” Laursen tells DR News.

Scoopdeal.dk is another one of the sites that have been blocked.

“This is disastrous for a company like ours and there is no doubt it is costing revenue,” says Scoopdeal’s Lotte Reimar, who like Laursen has been unable to get a response from Facebook.

Some three million Danes – out of a population of 5.4 million – currently use Facebook.

“This simply shows the power that Facebook currently has. It’s not just a social network, but for many it is the entry point to the Internet,” says DR News Social Media Editor Lars Damgaard Nielsen.

Several of the bloggers and companies that have been hit by Facebook’s ban have discovered that they were using the same server at Unoeuro when Facebook blocked their sites. According to reports, the ban was introduced because one or more sites on the same server had begun sending out spam.

The current theory is that Facebook has blocked all sites on the server, irrespective of the fact that only one, or at most a few, had been spamming.

But despite Trendsonline.dk having changed servers, web hotel and IP address, its site is still blocked, suggesting that its domain name has been banned by Facebook.

DR News has approached Facebook’s Scandinavian press contact for details, but has not yet received a reply.

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