Another exec leaving Facebook

Benjamin Ling, who was recruited from Google to lead Facebook's developer platform product marketing team, plans to leave his job at the social-networking site, the fourth key executive to depart in recent months.

Ling's departure, which was reported by VentureBeat's Eric Eldon and BoomTown's Kara Swisher, was confirmed by Facebook in a statement Tuesday.

At the Graphing Social Patterns: East conference in June, Ling confirmed that Facebook would be launching a widely rumored payment system for application developers, but declined to provide a time frame at the conference. Before joining Facebook last fall, Ling was the head of Google Checkout.

Ling's move to Facebook was followed by that of Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public affairs at Google. Apparently there was some speculation that Ling wasn't happy with Schrage being installed over him at Facebook, but Ling denied that rumor to Swisher, saying, "I have huge respect for Elliot and work well with him."

Ling, who told his staff about his departure Tuesday, told Swisher that he was leaving the social-networking site to pursue "another opportunity." He added, "Facebook is a tremendous organization and I would not leave it if it were not for a great opportunity."

From Facebook's statement on the departure:

Facebook confirms that Ben Ling will be leaving the company in the coming weeks to pursue other interests. We wish him well and appreciate his great contributions to the early success of Facebook Platform.

Other key executives who have left Facebook in recent months: Owen Van Natta, Facebook's chief revenue officer and vice president of operations, announced his departure in February; Matt Cohler, Facebook's No. 5 employee, left for venture firm Benchmark Capital in June; and Adam D'Angelo, Facebook's chief technology officer, announced in June he was leaving the company to take some time off.