Policies
Acceptable use policy
The rules a person decides and the system enforces. They are published in full because a creative team that can read them before submitting is cheaper for everyone than one that learns them through rejections.
Prohibited without exception
No advertiser, no route, no exception. None of these categories has a switch anyone could turn on.
- Prescription pharmaceuticals and direct-to-consumer prescription drug promotion.
- Goods and services that are illegal in the jurisdiction the ad targets.
- Content sexualising minors, non-consensual material, and anything else the extreme rating exists to record and report.
- Malware, cryptojacking and deceptive downloads.
- Fraudulent financial offers: fake exchanges, guaranteed-return schemes and advance-fee fraud.
Restricted
Off until enabled, and then only under the stated conditions. Being here rather than above means a category can become acceptable, not that it is acceptable today.
- Gambling and iGaming: licence verification, a per-country matrix, and responsible-gambling messaging inside the creative.
- Crypto assets and Web3: authorisation verification, geo-fencing that fails closed, and risk warnings in the creative.
- Supplements and health claims: claims-substantiation review.
- Political advertising: a per-country gate and disclosure requirements.
- Alcohol, tobacco and vaping, cannabis and weapons: a per-country gate and age targeting.
- Financial services: a per-country gate and authorisation verification where required.
- Adult dating: enabled as a label and excluded from service by the creative rating cap.
| Category | Status | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Mainstream dating | Accepted | Open, with mandatory human review of every creative against the deceptive-pattern list. |
| Adult dating | Accepted | The label is accepted, the content is not: the category exists so it can be declared, and the creative rating cap excludes it from service. |
| Gambling and iGaming | Deferred | A licensed activity where the intermediary carries obligations of its own, different in every country. Switched off until a legal review exists that would let us price the risk. |
| Crypto assets and Web3 | Deferred | Consumer financial promotion carries criminal exposure in several jurisdictions. One fraudulent ad would end the brand-safe positioning that is the entire thesis. |
| Supplements with health claims | Deferred | Deferred until a claims-substantiation process exists. Today it is covered by the pharmaceutical flag. |
| Prescription pharmaceuticals | Prohibited | No toggle at all. It is prohibited in nearly every country, and it is refused in code, in a database trigger, and in a schema constraint. |
Creative rules, whatever the category
These apply to every creative, including ones in entirely general categories.
- No deceptive patterns: fake notifications, fake system UI, fake interaction, fake proximity or undisclosed cost.
- A creative may not imitate the chrome of the page hosting it or an operating-system dialog.
- The declared rating and flags must match both the creative and the landing page.
Deceptive patterns
The checklist human review uses, published as it stands. Any single yes is a rejection.
- Fake proximity: "three people near you", a map, a distance in kilometres.
- Fake notification: a message bubble, an unread badge, a red dot, or a simulated system notification.
- Fake interaction: "someone viewed your profile", "you have five matches", a typing indicator, a countdown.
- Fake identity: stock or scraped images presented as real members of the service.
- Fake UI: imitating the host page, a system dialog, a browser warning, or a video player that is not there.
- A rating mismatch between the creative and the landing page. The page is reviewed, not only the ad.
- Adult content declared as mainstream. Beyond the rejection, the advertiser is re-flagged.
- Undisclosed cost: "free" over a service whose main function is behind a paywall.
How it is enforced
Where each rule ends up: in a schema constraint, in a trigger, or in front of a person.
What can be checked mechanically is checked mechanically and does not depend on anyone remembering: a creative above the rating cap cannot reach the approved state, and a prohibited category is refused in three independent places at once, so none of them can be switched off while the other two keep refusing.
What cannot be checked mechanically is reviewed by a person, and every regulated category requires that review by definition. Any review decision is recorded with its reason, and that record is append-only: a decision cannot be rewritten afterwards.