What this page is for

Online advertising only works while readers still trust what they are looking at. These are the rules we apply to every campaign we buy, whether you ordered a package or came in with a brief. They are not negotiable per client: if a request needs one of them bent, we will say no and explain why.

Sponsored content is always labelled

Native and newsletter placements carry a visible sponsored mark in the position and size the publisher requires. We do not remove it, shrink it below the publisher's minimum, or place it where it scrolls out of view before the label is read. An ad that only works when the label is hidden does not work.

No fake interface, no fake function

Creative must not imitate a control the reader might click by mistake: play buttons that only start an ad, fake close buttons, system warnings, download prompts, chat bubbles that are not a real chat, or progress bars that track nothing. Nor may it imitate a publisher's own editorial furniture to imply endorsement.

Claims have to be supportable

Numbers, comparisons and guarantees in an ad need to be true and, where a market requires it, evidenced. We ask you for the basis of any performance claim before launch. If the basis is a projection, the ad says so or the claim comes out. This applies to superlatives as much as to figures.

Targeting we will not run

• Audiences built on health conditions, financial hardship, or any category a publisher treats as sensitive
• Advertising to children, or creative designed to appeal to children, unless the placement is explicitly age-gated and permitted
• Personal data lists bought or scraped rather than collected with consent
• Political or issue advertising without the disclosure the jurisdiction requires

Products and categories we decline

Counterfeit goods, unlicensed pharmaceuticals, weapons, gambling where unlicensed, adult content outside a publisher's stated policy, misleading financial products, and anything that misrepresents who the advertiser is. We also decline campaigns whose landing page does not match the ad, since that mismatch is the most common cause of complaints against a publisher.

Automatic audio and heavy creative

Sound plays only after a deliberate click. Creatives stay inside the page weight and file size limits the carrying site publishes, and we will compress or rebuild an asset rather than ask for an exception. A placement that degrades the page it sits on is a placement we lose.

How we handle a complaint

1. A publisher or reader complaint reaches us with the placement, the timestamp and a screenshot where possible.
2. We pause the creative within one business day while we check it, without waiting for the outcome.
3. If the complaint is upheld, the creative stays down, we tell you what was wrong, and the same creative is not placed elsewhere.
4. If it is not upheld, we record the reason and the creative can resume.

Where these rules come from

They reflect the requirements publishers in our network set for advertising on their sites, plus the general principles of truthfulness, transparency and no dark patterns. Specific markets add their own rules, and where a local requirement is stricter than this page, the local rule applies.