Advertising Policies

Last modified August 17, 2022.

 

1. Understanding our policies

 

Our Advertising Policies provide guidance on what types of advert content are allowed.

When advertisers place an order, each advert is reviewed against these policies. If you think that your advert was not approved by mistake, please let us know.

 

2. The advert review process

 

Before adverts appear on Bloc, they are reviewed to make sure that they meet our Advertising Policies.

Typically, most adverts are reviewed within 24 hours, although in some cases, it may take longer.

What we consider:

During the advert review process, we’ll check your advert’s images and text, in addition to the content on your advert’s URL landing page.

Your advert may not be approved if the landing page content isn’t fully functional, doesn’t match the product/service promoted in your advert or doesn’t fully comply with our Advertising Policies.

What happens after an advert has been reviewed?

After your advert has been reviewed, you’ll receive an email letting you know whether your advert has been approved.

If it’s approved, we’ll start running your advert, and you will be able to see your results in your Dashboard.

 

3. Steps to take if disapproved

 

Edit your advert:

If your advert hasn’t been approved due to not fully complying with our policies, you can edit it and resubmit it for review. To edit your advert:

1. Check the email address associated with your advert account. If your advert isn’t approved, we’ll send you an email with details that explain why.
2. Using the information in your disapproval email, you can edit your advert and create a compliant one.
3. Save your edited changes. When you’ve saved your changes, your advert will be resubmitted for review.

Appeal the decision:

If you can’t edit your advert or feel that it not being approved was a mistake, you can appeal the decision by emailing us.

 

4. Prohibited content

 

1. Illegal products or services – adverts must not constitute, facilitate or promote illegal products, services, events or activities.

2. Discriminatory practices – adverts must not engage in predatory advertising practices or contain content that discriminates against, harasses, provokes or disparages people who use Bloc.

3. Tobacco products or events – adverts must not promote the sale or use of tobacco products and related paraphernalia.

4. Drugs and drug-related events/products – adverts must not promote the sale or use of illegal, prescription or recreational drugs.

5. Unsafe supplements – adverts must not promote the sale or use of unsafe supplements, as determined by Bloc at its sole discretion.

6. Weapons, ammunition or explosives – adverts must not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition or explosives.

7. Adult products or services – adverts must not promote the sale or use of adult products, events or services, unless they promote family planning and contraception. Adverts for contraceptives must focus on the contraceptive features of the product and not on sexual pleasure or sexual enhancement.

8. Adult content – adverts must not contain adult content. This includes nudity, depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative.

9. Third-party infringement – ads must not contain content that infringes on or violates the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary rights.

10. Sensational content – adverts must not contain shocking, sensational, disrespectful or excessively violent content.

11. Personal attributes – adverts must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes. This includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race, ethnic origin, religion, beliefs, age, sexual orientation or practices, gender identity, disability, medical condition (including physical or mental health), financial status, membership in a trade union, criminal record or name.

12. Misleading or false content – adverts must not contain deceptive, false or misleading content, including deceptive claims, offers or business practices.

13. Controversial content – adverts must not contain content that exploits controversial political or social issues for commercial purposes.

14. Non-functional landing page – adverts must not direct people to non-functional landing pages. This includes landing page content that interferes with a person’s ability to navigate away from the page.

15. Surveillance equipment – adverts may not promote the sale of spy cams, mobile phone trackers or other hidden surveillance equipment.

16. Grammar and profanity – ads must not contain profanity or bad grammar and punctuation. Symbols, numbers and letters must be used properly, without the intention of circumventing our ad review process or other enforcement systems.

17. Non-existent functionality – adverts must not contain images that portray non-existent functionality.

18. Personal health – adverts must not contain “before-and-after” images or images that contain unexpected or unlikely results. Advert content must not imply or attempt to generate a negative self-perception in order to promote dietary, weight loss or other health-related products. Adverts for health, fitness or weight loss products must be targeted to people aged 18 years or older.

19. Payday or cash advance loans – adverts must not promote payday loans, paycheck advances or any other short-term loan intended to cover someone’s expenses until their next payday.

20. Multi-level marketing – adverts promoting income opportunities must fully describe the associated product or business model, and must not promote business models offering quick compensation for little investment, including multi-level marketing opportunities.

21. Penny auctions – adverts may not promote penny auctions, bidding fee auctions or other similar business models.

22. Counterfeit documents – adverts may not promote fake documents, such as counterfeit degrees, passports or immigration papers.

23. Low-quality or disruptive content – adverts must not contain content leading to external landing pages that provide an unexpected or disruptive experience. This includes misleading advert positioning, such as overly sensationalised headlines, and leading people to landing pages that contain minimal original content and a majority of unrelated or low-quality advert content.

24. Spyware or malware – adverts must not contain spyware, malware or any software that results in an unexpected or deceptive experience. This includes links to sites containing these products.

25. Automatic animation – ads must not contain audio or flash animation that plays automatically without a person interacting with it or expands within Bloc after someone clicks on the advert.

26. Unauthorised streaming devices – adverts must not promote products or items that facilitate or encourage unauthorised access to digital media

27. Circumventing systems – ads must not use tactics that are intended to circumvent our ad review process or other enforcement systems. This includes techniques that attempt to disguise the ad’s content or destination page.

 

5. Restricted content

 

1. Alcohol – ads that promote or reference alcohol must comply with all applicable local laws, required or established industry codes, guidelines, licences and approvals, and include age and country targeting criteria consistent with Bloc’s targeting guidelines and applicable local laws. Please note that ads promoting or referencing alcohol are prohibited in some countries, including, but not limited to: Afghanistan, Brunei, Bangladesh, Egypt, Gambia, Kuwait, Libya, Lithuania, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

2. Dating – Adverts for online dating services are only allowed with prior written permission.

3. Real money gambling – adverts that promote or facilitate online real money gambling, real money games of skill or real money lotteries, including online real money casinos, sport books, bingo or poker, are only allowed with prior written permission. Authorised gambling, games of skill or lottery adverts must target people over the age of 18 who are in jurisdictions for which permission has been granted.

4. Regional lotteries – lotteries run by government entities may advertise on Bloc, provided that the adverts are targeted in accordance with the applicable law in the jurisdiction in which the adverts will be served and only target people in the jurisdiction in which the lottery is available.

5. Online pharmacies – adverts must not promote the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals. Adverts for online and offline pharmacies are only permitted with prior written permission.

6. Supplements – adverts that promote acceptable dietary and herbal supplements may only target people who are at least 18 years of age.

7. Subscription services – adverts for subscription services or that promote products or services that include negative options, automatic renewal, free-to-pay conversion billing products or mobile marketing are subject to our subscription services requirements.

8. Financial services – adverts promoting credit card applications or financial services with accredited institutions must clearly provide sufficient disclosure regarding associated fees, including APR percentages transaction fees, on the advert’s landing page. Adverts promoting loans or insurance services must not directly request the person to input financial information, including credit card information.

9. Branded content – adverts promoting branded content must tag the featured third-party product, brand or business partner using the branded content tool. branded content within adverts is defined as a creator or publisher’s content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value. When promoting branded content integrations, advertisers must use the branded content tool (please learn more here about how to tag the featured third-party product, brand or business partner).

10. Student loans services -adverts promoting student loans services must be targeted to people aged 18 years or older. Adverts must not promote misleading or deceptive services related to student loan consolidation, cancellation or refinancing.

 

6. Video adverts

 

Video adverts and other dynamic advert types must comply to all of the rules listed in these Advertising Policies:

1. Disruptive content – videos and other similar advert types must not use overly disruptive tactics, such as flashing screens.

2. Entertainment-related restrictions – adverts for film trailers, TV programmes, video game trailers and other similar content intended for mature audiences are only allowed with prior written permission from Bloc and must target people who are aged 18 years or older. Excessive depictions of the following content within these adverts are not allowed:

1. Drug and alcohol use
2. Adult content
3. Profanity
4. Violence and gore

 

7. Positioning

 

1. Relevance – all advert components, including any text, images or other media, must be relevant and appropriate to the product or service being offered and the audience viewing the advert.

2. Accuracy adverts must clearly represent the company, product, service or brand that is being advertised.

3. Related landing pages – the products and services promoted in an advert’s text must match those promoted on the landing page, and the destination site must not offer or link to any prohibited product or service.

 

8. Text in ad images

 

Excessive text in ad images may result in your ad reaching fewer people or not running at all. Try to use little or no image text when possible.

 

9. Lead adverts

 

Advertisers must not create lead adverts questions to request the following types of information without our prior written permission.

1. Account numbers – adverts must not request account numbers, including frequent flyer numbers, loyalty card numbers or cable or telephone account numbers, without our prior permission.

2. Criminal history – adverts must not request information regarding criminal or arrest history without our prior permission.

3. Financial information – adverts must not request financial information, including bank account numbers, bank routing numbers, credit or debit card numbers, credit scores, income, net worth or how much debt someone has, without our prior permission.

4. Government-issued identifiers – ads must not request government-issued identifiers, including National Insurance numbers, passport numbers or driving licence numbers, without our prior permission.

5. Health information – adverts must not request health information, including information on physical health, mental health, medical treatments, medical conditions or disabilities, without our prior permission.

6. Insurance information – adverts must not request insurance information, including current insurance policy numbers, without our prior permission.

7. Political affiliation – adverts must not request information regarding political affiliation without our prior permission.

8. Race or ethnicity – adverts must not request information regarding the race or ethnicity without our prior permission.

9. Religion – adverts must not request information regarding religion or philosophical beliefs without our prior permission.

10. Sexual orientation – adverts must not request information regarding sexual orientation or information about the sexual life of the individual, including what gender(s) the person prefers to date, without our prior permission.

11. Template questions – adverts must not request the same or substantially similar information that you could use a template question to request.

12. Trade union membership – adverts must not request information regarding trade union membership status without our prior permission.

13. Usernames or passwords – adverts must not request usernames or passwords, including usernames and passwords for existing and new accounts, without our prior permission.

 

10. Use of our brand assets

 

Brand endorsement – adverts must not imply a Bloc endorsement or partnership of any kind, or an endorsement by any other Bloc company.

 

11. Data use restrictions

 

1. Ensure that any advert data collected, received or derived from your Bloc advert (“Bloc advertising data”) is only shared with someone acting on your behalf, such as your service provider. You are responsible for ensuring that your service providers protect any Bloc advertising data or any other information obtained from us, limit their use of all of this information, and keep it confidential and secure.
2. Don’t use Bloc advertising data for any purpose (including retargeting, commingling data across multiple advertisers’ campaigns or allowing piggybacking or redirecting with tags), except on an aggregate and anonymous basis (unless authorised by Bloc) and only to assess the performance and effectiveness of your Bloc advertising campaigns.
3. Don’t use Bloc advertising data, including the targeting criteria for your advert, to build, append to, edit, influence or augment user profiles, including profiles associated with any mobile device identifier or other unique identifiers that identify any particular user, browser, computer or device.
4. Don’t transfer any Bloc advertising data (including anonymous, aggregate or derived data) to any advertising network, advert exchange, data broker or other advertising or monetisation-related service.

 

12. Things you should know

 

1. The Advertising Policies apply to adverts and commercial content served by or purchased through Bloc, on or off the Bloc services, including adverts purchased under AAAA/IAB Standard Terms and Conditions. Your use of Bloc’s advertising products and services is part of “Bloc” under Bloc’s Business Service Terms and Terms of Service.
2. Advertisers are responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable laws and regulations. Failure to comply may result in a variety of consequences, including the cancellation of adverts you have placed and termination of your account.
3. We do not use sensitive personal data for advert targeting. Topics you choose for targeting your advert don’t reflect the personal beliefs, characteristics or values of the people who use Bloc.
4. Ads are public information, as described in the Bloc Data Policy. Ads may be re-shared and accessed by users outside of the targeted audience (including from other services made available by Bloc), and remain accessible after the campaigns end (e.g., if shared, until the users delete it, or visible to users through their account tools).
5. If you are managing adverts on behalf of other advertisers, each advertiser or client must be managed through separate advert accounts. You must not change the advertiser or client associated with an established advert account. You must set up a new account. You are responsible for ensuring that each advertiser complies with these Advertising Policies.
6. We reserve the right to reject, approve or remove any advert for any reason, at our sole discretion, including adverts that negatively affect our relationship with our users or that promote content, services or activities contrary to our competitive position, interests or advertising philosophy.
7. For policies that require prior written permission, Bloc may grant these permissions.
8. These policies are subject to change at any time without notice.