Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Star Trek star George Takei are only two of the big names speaking out against Facebook’s new “promoted posts” feature, although theirs may be two of the loudest voices. The feature allows users and organizations to pay a fee in order for their posts to appear on more friends’ and fans’ news feeds. A typical unpaid post to a Facebook page is generally seen by fewer than one-fifth of the people who follow that page.

Cuban blasted Facebook in the media for charging him $3,000 to promote a post in order to reach as much as half of the Maverick’s 2.3 million followers.

“Why would we invest in extending our Facebook audience size if we have to pay to reach them” Cuban told ReadWrite. “That’s crazy.”

Cuban’s reaction was not unjustified, according to AOL blogger and TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington.

“I like how it shows me how many paid (100 percent) versus unpaid (0 percent) views I have so far,” Arrington wrote. “Since Facebook is in control of both types of views it isn’t all that meaningful. Still, I wouldn’t feel like such a chump if I saw at least a few unpaid views. Cuban’s right, this has the appearance of shady.”

Facebook, however, has legitimate reasons to alter its algorithm in ways that tighten content from promotional pages. Users have complained pages clog their newsfeeds with spammy promotions. In the case of Cuban’s Mavericks page, recent posts not only include game updates, but promotions for local businesses and promotions for Mavericks games and specials. Game updates even include advertisements for Mavs sponsors. Therefore, Cuban’s real beef is he’s lost free advertisement. But Cuban’s never been known for talk and little action.

“It’s not feasible yet, but we have no choice but to continuously evaluate alternatives,” Cuban told ReadWrite. “We have already pushed more to Twitter. The new Myspace looks promising. And Instagram and Tumblr and others are much more open and are getting more of our attention.”

But just as Cuban is known for action, Facebook is known for evolution. Although the company says it is in no way reacting to celebrity criticism, Facebook rolled out a new “Pages only” view Nov. 14. A variant of the News Feed, the view will filter posts and display only those from businesses, celebrities, news publishers and others using Facebook Pages. Users still won’t see every post from the pages they follow, but will see more page content than in the regular news feed.

Will Cuban be satisfied? It’s too soon to tell. But he explained to ReadWrite there is a bigger issue at hand.

“Facebook has never allowed 100 percent reach. I think the disconnect is that not everyone realized that they didn’t allow 100 percent reach,” he said. “I bet if you asked anyone who has subscribers if their posts reached 100 percent of their subscribers, they would say yes unless they have seen the dollar box for promoted posts show up.

“I think the same applies to brands as well. Remember most brands don’t have social media departments. They rely on common sense. If someone likes your brand, it seems like common sense to me that you can expect your posts to reach 100 percent of those that like your brand. Doesn’t it to you?”

[Image via Keith Allison/Flickr]