Facebook isn’t exactly making money hand over first. Sure, they’ve got $240 million from Microsoft (creating a $15 billion valuation), but even the search giant can’t figure out how to monetize its tens of millions of active members. Ad campaigns on the site notoriously perform poorly, so it’s a bit shocking that Facebook would find itself forced to turn away ad dollars that it so desperately courts. But that’s what they’ve done with a campaign from Universal’s upcoming movie Untraceable.

Like MySpace, Facebook allows advertisers to create profiles to promote their goods. But the Untraceable campaign turned out to be as gruesome as it was innovative, proving too much for Facebook’s standards and practices department.

Perhaps that’s because the movie – about a serial killer who creates an untraceable site where he live broadcasts his murders – skewed a little too close to the Facebook ad, which unveiled more of the film’s torture scenes as more people visited the profile?

Writes Variety:

Taking its lead from the pic’s chilling storyline, in which a serial killer creates an untraceable website where he conducts violent and painful murders live on the net, a “Kill With Me” page was posted on Facebook. The more fans the Facebook page received, the more of the torture sequence from the film was made available to view for free.

But before the whole scene was unleashed online, Universal received a message from Facebook explaining that the page had been removed on the basis that “pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed.”

Dan Light, PPC head of interactive, welcomes the controversy caused by the Facebook ban but rejects suggestions that the hard-hitting campaign sought out trouble. “I am surprised and disappointed that Facebook have taken this action,” said Light.

Facebook is not the only online player objecting to “Untraceable” promotional stunts. Video blogging community Seesmic moderators have yanked an alternative reality game produced by Universal.