• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 29, 2019

With an eye on transparency, Facebook is expanding the services that support its “Ad Library.” Previously called the Ad Archive, the new Ad Library is expanding its database beyond political ads and Pages.

Interested parties can now search through all active ads any Page is running.

The new Ad Library is also adding more information about Pages, including their creation date, previous Page merges, and name changes.

This could make it more difficult for bad actors to avoid scrutiny simply by changing the changing the name of their Pages. 

Additional information that can now be gleaned through the Ad Library includes the primary country location of people who manage a Page, provided it runs ads related to politics or public-interest issues in select countries.

With the Ad Library, the inquisitive and the curious can track advertiser spending on ads related to politics or public-interest issues.

This includes all-time spend and spend over the last week, which was previously only available in the Ad Library Report.

For the sake of convenience, past user searches will now be saved for those logged into Facebook. People can now search by Page -- not just keywords.

Starting in mid-May, Facebook is updating the Ad Library report for ads related to politics or issues daily, rather than weekly. The tech titan also plans to offer weekly, monthly and quarterly reports that are downloadable to anyone.

Beyond the Ad Library, Facebook is also making it easier for people to find information within Pages.

For example, the “Home” tab of every Page will now include a “Page Transparency” section with the same Page information that has been added to the Ad Library, including date that Pages were created, previous Page merges, name changes, and primary country location for certain Pages.

Finally, Facebook said this week that it is expanding access to it Ad Library API, which should make it easier to analyze ads related to politics and public-interest issues.