Google Publisher Policies

We do not allow content that:

• is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others.

We do not allow content that:

• infringes copyright. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can file a counter-notification via this form.
• 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.

We do not allow content that:

• 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 marginalization.

  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

• harasses, intimidates, or bullies an individual or group of individuals.

  Examples: Singling out someone for abuse or harassment, suggesting a tragic event did not happen or that victims or their families are actors or complicit in a cover-up of the event

• threatens or advocates for 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 organizations, or content that promotes terrorist acts, including recruitment, or that celebrates attacks by transnational drug trafficking or terrorist organizations

• exploits others through extortion.

  Examples: Exploitative removals, revenge porn, blackmail

We do not allow content that:

• promotes cruelty or gratuitous violence towards animals.

  Examples: Promoting animal cruelty for entertainment purposes, such as cock or dog fighting

• promotes the sale of products obtained from endangered or threatened species.

  Examples: Sale of tigers, shark fins, elephant ivory, tiger skins, rhino horn, dolphin oil

Misleading representation

 Learn more about misleading representation

Unreliable and harmful claims

 Learn more about unreliable and harmful claims

Deceptive practices

 Learn more about deceptive practices

Manipulated media

 Learn more about manipulated media 

We do not allow content that:

• helps users to mislead others.

  Examples: Creating fake or false documents such as passports, diplomas, or accreditation; sale or distribution of term papers, paper-writing or exam-taking services; information or products for passing drug tests

• promotes any form of hacking or cracking and/or provides users with instructions, equipment, or software that tampers with or provides unauthorized access to devices, software, servers, or websites.

  Examples: Pages or products that enable illegal access of cell phones and other communications or content delivery systems or devices; products or services that bypass copyright protection, including circumvention of digital rights management technologies; products that illegally descramble cable or satellite signals in order to get free services; pages that assist or enable users to download streaming videos if prohibited by the content provider

• enables a user, or promotes products and services that enable a user, to track or monitor another person or their activities without their authorization.

  Examples: Spyware and technology used for intimate partner surveillance including but not limited to spyware/malware that enables a user to monitor another person’s texts, phone calls, or browsing history; GPS trackers specifically marketed to spy or track someone without their consent; promotion of surveillance equipment (e.g. cameras, audio recorders, dash cams, nanny cams) marketed with the express purpose of spying

  This does not include (a) private investigation services or (b) products or services designed for parents to track or monitor their underage children.

We do not allow content that:

• 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

• contains non-consensual sexual themes, whether simulated or real.

  Examples: Rape, incest, bestiality, necrophilia, snuff, lolita or teen-themed pornography, underage dating

• promotes the creation or distribution of content that has been altered or generated to be sexually explicit or contain nudity.

  Examples: site or app that claims to generate deepfake pornography, instructions on how to create deepfake pornography, endorsing or comparing deepfake pornography services

We do not allow content that:

• may be interpreted as promoting a sexual act in exchange for compensation.

  Examples: Prostitution; companionship and escort services; intimate massage; cuddling sites; compensated dating or sexual arrangements where one participant is expected to provide money, gifts, financial support, mentorship, or other valuable benefits to another participant such as "Sugar" dating

We do not allow content that:

• 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.

We do not allow content that:

• Sexually exploits or abuses children or content that promotes the sexual exploitation or abuse of children. This includes all child sexual abuse materials.
• Endangers children. Including but not limited to:
  • ‘Child grooming’ (for example, befriending a child online to facilitate, either online or offline, sexual contact and/or exchanging sexual imagery with that child);
  • ‘Sextortion’ (for example, threatening or blackmailing a child by using real or alleged access to a child’s intimate images);
  • Sexualization of a minor (for example, content that depicts, encourages or promotes the sexual abuse or exploitation of children); and
  • Trafficking of a child (for example, advertising or solicitation of a child for commercial sexual exploitation).

We will take appropriate action, which may include reporting to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and disabling accounts. If you believe a child is in danger of or has been subject to abuse, exploitation, or trafficking, contact the police immediately. If you have concerns a child is being or was being endangered in connection with our products, you can report the behavior to Google.

Information provided by publishers to enable their use of or interaction with Google advertising systems:

• must be materially accurate and complete, without misleading omissions; and
• cannot be expressed in a deceptive or misleading manner.

  Examples: The personal information or payment details provided by a publisher are materially incomplete, obscured or inaccurate. Information provided about a publisher’s website (e.g., in the ads.txt file) or app (e.g., in the app-ads.txt file) is inaccurate. Ad requests that contain partial or inaccurate URLs or AppIDs.

Google-served ads interfering with content or user interactions

We do not allow Google-served ads that:

• overlay or are adjacent to navigational or other action items and may lead to unintended ad interactions,
• severely interfere with consumption of content including overlaying the content or pushing the content off the display,
• are placed on a "dead end" screen where the user is not able to exit the screen without clicking the ad. 

Google-served ads on screens without publisher-content

Learn more about Google-served ads on screens without publisher-content

Out of context ads

Learn more about out of context ads

Google-served ads on screens with replicated content

Learn more about Google-served ads on screens with replicated content

More ads or paid promotional material than publisher-content

Learn more about More ads or paid promotional material than publisher-content

 Unsupported languages

Learn more about unsupported languages

You must not use Google's platform products or Google ad code to select or target personalized ads, or to collect or use audience data such as cookie lists, based on:

• past or current activity by users known by you to be under the age of 13 years;
• past or current activity by users on sites or apps or areas of sites or apps directed at children under the age of 13 years;
• past or current activity by users on adult, gambling, or government agency sites or apps; or
• other inferred or actual sensitive information, including, without limitation:
  • health or medical history or information, such as from sites or apps that market to a specific health-related group,
  • negative financial status or other detailed information pertaining to a person's finances, such as information indicating that a user has a low credit rating or high debt load,
  • racial or ethnic origins, such as from sites or apps that collect affirmative racial or ethnic identification from visitors,
  • religious beliefs or other beliefs of a similar nature, such as from sites or apps that collect people’s affirmative information on religion or religious beliefs,
  • the commission or alleged commission of any crime, such as information indicating that a user has a criminal record,
  • political affiliation, such as information indicating a user’s political opinion or political ideology,
  • trade union membership, such as a user’s visit to a trade union’s site or app, or
  • sexual behavior or orientation, such as sexual orientation inferred from a user’s visit to a particular site.

In the U.S. and Canada, the following categories of products or services cannot be targeted to audiences based on gender, age, parental status, marital status, or ZIP code:

• housing, such as housing listings for sale or rental, real estate services.
• employment, such as ads for jobs, job recruitment sites, job listing sites. A subset of predetermined U.S. government advertisers promoting employment are permitted to target restricted audiences under specific conditions. If the targeting is based on a bona fide occupational qualification for a government job, which is defined under U.S. law as a qualification that is reasonably necessary for normal function of the job, these identified U.S. government advertisers may target restricted audiences.
• offers relating to credit, banking products and services, or certain financial planning and management services. Examples: Credit cards and loans, banking and checking accounts, debt management products.

If you use Google's platform products or Google ad code for personalized advertising:

• you must have all rights necessary to use audience data such as cookie lists.
• advertisers must attach notices to advertisements to make clear that they are interest-based (e.g., by using an "AdChoices" icon); and
• all parties must comply with applicable Internet advertising industry guidelines (e.g., the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising of the Digital Advertising Alliance, or IAB Europe's EU Framework for Online Behavioral Advertising).

Publishers must:

• 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.

  To comply with this disclosure obligation with respect to Google’s use of data, you have the option to display a prominent link to How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps.

Publishers must:

• not set a cookie on Google's domains or modify, intercept or delete cookies set on Google's domains.

Publishers must:

• 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.
• not pass any information to Google data that Google could use or recognize 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).
• 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.

• comply with the EU user consent policy.

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:

• disclose to the user, via an interstitial or just-in-time notice, the purposes for which their data may be used (including, ad personalization, analytics, and attribution, as applicable), including that the data may be shared with partners;
• obtain express (i.e., opt-in) consent from end users before collecting, processing, or disclosing such information;
• send such information to Google in an encrypted state or via an encrypted channel; and
• disclose such information collection, processing, or disclosure in all applicable privacy policies.

If you implement any Google advertising service on an app, a site or section of a site that is covered by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), you must:

• 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;
•  not use interest-based advertising (including remarketing) to target:
  • past or current activity by users known by you to be under the age of 13 years or
  • past or current activity on sites directed at users under the age of 13 years.

You must not:

• place Google-served ads on screens that violate the Spam policies for Google web search.

You must not:

• place Google-served ads on screens that contain abusive experiences.

You must not:

• place Google-served ads on screens that contain malicious software or "malware" that may harm or gain unauthorized access to a computer, device, or network.

  Examples: Computer viruses, ransomware, worms, trojan horses, rootkits, keyloggers, dialers, spyware, rogue security software, and other malicious programs or apps

• place Google-served ads on screens that violate Google's Unwanted Software policy.

  Examples: Failure to be transparent about the functionality that the software provides or the full implications of installing the software; failing to include Terms of Service or an End User License Agreement; bundling software or applications without the user's knowledge; making system changes without the user's consent; making it difficult for users to disable or uninstall the software; failing to properly use publicly available Google APIs when interacting with Google services or products

You must not:

• place Google-served ads on screens that do not conform to the Better Ads Standards. For more information about the types of disallowed ad experiences, please visit the Coalition for Better Ads website.

You must not:

• place Google-served ads on a domain that uses ads.txt where you are not included as an authorized seller of the inventory in the ads.txt file. 

For syndication partners, Parents must ensure Children promptly add an ads.txt file to Child domains with Parents as authorized sellers of Child Inventory.

Google must comply with sanctions and export controls maintained by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), United States Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry & Security and other applicable  sanctions. As a result, Google publisher products are not available to publishers in the following countries or territories:

• Crimea
• Cuba
• So-called Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) 
• Iran
• North Korea
• Syria

Google publisher products also may not be used for or on behalf of a party located in the above listed sanctioned countries or regions. 

In addition, Google publisher products are not eligible for any entities or individuals that are restricted under applicable trade sanctions and export compliance laws. Google publisher products are not eligible for entities or individuals owned or controlled by or acting for or on behalf of such restricted entities or individuals. 

Publishers must also comply with applicable sanctions and export regulations, which includes OFAC sanctions, and agree to not cause Google to violate these regulations. You cannot use Google publisher products for or on behalf of restricted entities or individuals. You cannot use Google publisher products for or on behalf of entities or individuals located in sanctioned countries or regions.