Site Policies
Illegal content
We do not allow content that:
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is illegal, promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others.
Intellectual property abuse
We do not allow content that:
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infringes copyright. It's our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can file a counter notification using this form.
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sells or promotes the sale of counterfeit products. Counterfeit goods contain a trademark or logo that is identical to or substantially indistinguishable from the trademark of another. They mimic the brand features of the product in an attempt to pass themselves off as a genuine product of the brand owner.
Dangerous or derogatory content
We do not allow content that:
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incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalisation.
Examples: Promoting hate groups or hate group paraphernalia, encouraging others to believe that a person or group is inhuman, inferior or worthy of being hated
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harasses, intimidates or bullies an individual or group of individuals.
Examples: Singling out someone for abuse or harassment, suggesting that a tragic event did not happen or that victims or their families are actors or complicit in a cover-up of the event
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threatens or advocates physical or mental harm to oneself or others.
Examples: Content advocating suicide, anorexia or other self-harm; threatening someone with real-life harm or calling for the attack of another person; promoting, glorifying or condoning violence against others; content made by or in support of terrorist groups or transnational drug trafficking organisations, or content that promotes terrorist acts, including recruitment, or that celebrates attacks by transnational drug trafficking or terrorist organisations
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exploits others through extortion.
Examples: Exploitative removals, revenge porn, blackmail
Animal cruelty
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promotes cruelty or gratuitous violence towards animals.
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promotes the sale of products obtained from endangered or threatened species.
Misrepresentative content
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We do not allow content that:
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misrepresents, misstates or conceals information about the publisher, the content creator, the purpose of the content or the content itself.
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falsely implies having an affiliation with, or endorsement by, another individual, organisation, product or service.
Unreliable and harmful claims
We do not allow content that:
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makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.
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promotes harmful health claims, or relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus.
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contradicts authoritative scientific consensus on climate change.
Deceptive practices
We do not allow:
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enticing users to engage with content under false or unclear pretenses.
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attempting to steal personal information or trick users into sharing personal information
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promoting content, products or services using false, dishonest or deceptive claims.
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coordinating with other sites or accounts and concealing or misrepresenting your identity or other material details about yourself, where your content relates to politics, social issues or matters of public concern.
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directing content about politics, social issues or matters of public concern to users in a country other than your own, if you misrepresent or conceal your country of origin or other material details about yourself.
Manipulated media
We do not allow content that:
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deceives users through manipulated media related to politics, social issues or matters of public concern.
Enabling dishonest behaviour
We do not allow content that:
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helps users to mislead others.
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promotes any form of hacking or cracking and/or provides users with instructions, equipment or software that tampers with or provides unauthorised access to devices, software, servers or websites.
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enables a user, or promotes products and services that enable a user, to track or monitor another person or their activities without their authorisation.
Sexually explicit content
We do not allow content that:
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includes graphic sexual text, image, audio, video or games.
Examples: Sex acts such as genital, anal and/or oral sex; masturbation; cartoon porn or hentai; graphic nudity
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contains non-consensual sexual themes, whether simulated or real.
Examples: Rape, incest, bestiality, necrophilia, snuff, lolita or teen-themed pornography, underage dating
Compensated sexual acts
We do not allow content that:
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may be interpreted as promoting a sexual act in exchange for compensation.
Mail-order brides
We do not allow content that:
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facilitates marriage to a foreigner.
Adult themes in family content
We do not allow content that:
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is made to appear appropriate for a family audience, but contains adult themes including sex, violence or other depictions of children or popular children’s characters that are unsuitable for a general audience.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation
We do not allow content that:
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sexually exploits or abuses children, or content that promotes the sexual exploitation or abuse of children. This includes all child sexual abuse materials.
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endangers children. Including but not limited to:
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‘Child grooming’ (for example, befriending a child online to facilitate, either online or offline, sexual contact and/or exchanging sexual imagery with that child);
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‘Sextortion’ (for example, threatening or blackmailing a child by using real or alleged access to a child’s intimate images);
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Sexualisation of a minor (for example, content that depicts, encourages or promotes the sexual abuse or exploitation of children); and
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Trafficking of a child (for example, advertising or solicitation of a child for commercial sexual exploitation).
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We will take appropriate action, which may include reporting to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and disabling accounts. If you believe that a child is in danger of or has been subject to abuse, exploitation or trafficking, contact the police immediately. If you have concerns that a child is being or was being endangered in connection with our products, you can report the behaviour to Google.
Behavioural policies
Dishonest declarations
Information provided by publishers to enable their use of or interaction with Google advertising systems:
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must be materially accurate and complete, without misleading omissions; and
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cannot be expressed in a deceptive or misleading manner.
Ads interfering
Google-served ads interfering with content or user interactions
We do not allow Google-served ads that:
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overlay or are adjacent to navigational or other action items and may lead to unintended ad interactions,
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severely interfere with consumption of content, including overlaying the content or pushing the content off the display,
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are placed on a 'dead end' scr
Privacy-related policies
Privacy disclosures
Publishers must:
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have and abide by a privacy policy that clearly discloses any data collection, sharing and usage that takes place on any site, app, email publication or other property as a consequence of your use of Google products. The privacy policy must disclose to users that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users' browsers, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website.
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Cookies on Google domains
Publishers must:
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not set a cookie on Google's domains or modify, intercept or delete cookies set on Google's domains.
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Identifying users
Publishers must:
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not use device fingerprints or locally shared objects (e.g. Flash cookies, Browser Helper Objects, HTML5 local storage) other than HTTP cookies or user-resettable mobile device identifiers designed for use in advertising. This does not limit the use of IP address for the detection of fraud.
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not pass any information to Google data that Google could use or recognise as personally identifiable information; or that permanently identifies a particular device (such as a mobile phone's unique device identifier if such an identifier cannot be reset).
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not use our services to identify users or facilitate the merging of personally identifiable information with information previously collected as non-personally identifiable information without robust notice of, and the user's prior affirmative (i.e. opt-in) consent to, that identification or merger. Irrespective of users' consent, you must not attempt to disaggregate data that Google reports in aggregate.
For more information, please refer to Guidance for complying with the Identifying Users policy.
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comply with the EU user consent policy
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Use of device and location data
If publishers collect, process or disclose information that identifies or can be used to infer an end user's precise geographic location, such as sourced from GPS, wifi or cell tower data then,
Publishers must:
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disclose to the user, via an interstitial or just-in-time notice, the purposes for which their data may be used (including ad personalisation, analytics and attribution, as applicable), including that the data may be shared with partners;
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obtain express (i.e. opt-in) consent from end users before collecting, processing or disclosing such information;
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send such information to Google in an encrypted state or via an encrypted channel; and
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disclose such information collection, processing or disclosure in all applicable privacy policies.
Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs)
Google relies on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) for transfers of online advertising and measurement personal data out of Europe. For those services where Google acts as a processor, the Google Ads Data Processing Terms include, as necessary for the relevant data transfers, both the relevant SCCs issued by the European Commission (to help legitimise data transfers under the GDPR) and UK SCCs (to help legitimise data transfers under the GDPR as incorporated into UK law). Similarly, for those services where Google acts as a controller, the Google Ads Controller-Controller Data Protection Terms include, as necessary for the relevant data transfers, both the relevant European Commission-issued SCCs and UK SCCs.
If partner processes personal data that originated in the European Economic Area, UK or Switzerland and that is made available by Google in connection with partner's use of Google Ad Manager, then:
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partner must only use that personal data in a manner consistent with the consent provided by the data subject to whom it relates;
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Partner must provide a level of protection for that personal data that is at least equivalent to that required under the SCCs; and
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if partner determines that it cannot comply with the above requirements, partner must notify Google in writing, and either cease processing the personal data or take reasonable and appropriate steps to remedy such non-compliance.
US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
If you implement any Google advertising service on a site or section of a site that is covered by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), you must:
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notify Google of those sites or sections of sites covered by COPPA using the Google Search Console, tag the ad request using the AdMob SDK , or tag your site, app or ad request for child-directed treatment;
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not use interest-based advertising (including remarketing) to target:
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past or current activity by users known by you to be under the age of 13 years or
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past or current activity on sites directed at users under the age of 13 years.
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