After a series of sponsors pulled their ads from Facebook following their appearance alongside a post for the British National Party, Facebook has announced it would give advertisers more control over where their ads materialize.

COO Owen Van Natta of Facebook said the site plans on building technology that enables companies to better target ads. In the process, they will also receive functionalities that help them assess, and then block, unwanted associations.

Virgin Media, which last week joined a number of other advertisers in a Facebook boycott, according to The Times, praised the announcement.

"The issue on these sites has been that we haven't able to be confident what type of content our ads are appearing next to, but if they can find a way around that, then we'll definitely be back on board," said one spokesman.

The UK's Internet Advertising Bureau warned that unless social networks take similar precautions in protecting companies, advertisers will increasingly abandon the medium.