Paul C. Jeffries of Facebook’s Platform Policy Team posted an update on the Facebook Developers Blog about the social-networking site’s new Developer Principles and Policies, with the main piece of news being that all new requirements officially take effect at noon PT Dec. 16.

In what seems like a direct message to applications that have been accused of scamming users, Jeffries wrote:

We’ve all seen applications build long-term businesses by staying focused on providing a good user experience, creating user trust and engagement. These apps help all developers succeed by attracting more users to engage with great applications, creating a virtuous cycle that benefits the whole ecosystem. To continue to support this focus on user experience, we’re investing in personnel and technology to help us better uncover and rapidly respond to policy violations. You’ll continue to be able to launch an application without prior approval—that’s an important part of our open Platform philosophy—but you should expect it to be proactively reviewed at any time.

Our aim is for the Developer Policies and Examples and Explanations to reflect the specifics you need to easily make decisions and manage your applications. While our policies will guide our approach, no document can itemize every way to generate a bad user experience, so we’ll be enforcing our broader principles, as well. Those who try to circumvent the spirit of the policies or principles, or exploit a “loophole,” will be subject to enforcement.

When we find a violation, the action we take will depend on the developer’s compliance history, and the nature and severity of the violation. In many cases, we temporarily suspend some or all application functionality, or permanently disable.