Yahoo Supply Partner Policies
Yahoo Supply Partner Policies
The following policy applies to any content against which Yahoo provides advertising services. Any capitalized terms used in this policy that are not defined herein shall have the definitions given to such terms in the agreement between Yahoo and you.
Application
The following policies apply to entities that make content (“Content”) available on or through Yahoo's services, and the content in which an entity may make advertising space (“Placements”) available for advertisers.
Prohibited Content
The following content (or links to content) is prohibited. Publisher will ensure that the inventory does not contain any material in the following categories:
Sexual content
- Content that contains or promotes pornography, adult or mature content
- Sexually explicit content including but not limited to child sexual exploitation content or content featuring non-consensual acts, real or implied
- Any graphic sexual content transmitted or published for the purposes of entertainment, including photographs, videos, and text depicting or describing sexual acts
- Content that promotes or facilitates prostitution or escort services
- Content that has sexuality as its primary theme, but is not sexually explicit, such as sex advice or medical information
Misleading Content
- Content that is or may reasonably be considered misleading or false. Example: Conspiracy theory websites that contradict the results of an election
- Content that promotes sale of products and/or services with misleading or deceptive claims that results in an unexpected or deceptive experience. Example: 'Get rich quick' schemes
Offensive Content
- Content articulating views intended or reasonably likely to cause or incite hatred of any race, or ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, religion, creed, or protected class
- Content explicitly glorifying or delivering, for the purposes of prurient entertainment, scenes or descriptions of pain, suffering, death, torture, or ill-treatment of humans or animals
- Content that promotes terrorism or terrorist groups
- Content that promotes bigoted or hate-oriented behavior
- Politically divisive content that is reasonably likely to cause offense
- Potentially sensitive content such as recent violent tragedies or natural disasters
- Any vulgar, abusive, lewd and lascivious, profanity, expletive, or obscene content
- Defamatory, libelous, threatening or other material that advocates against any individual or entity
Weapons and Violence
- Content that is violent, glorifying or advocating the use of violence
- Content offering or facilitating the sale of fireworks
- Content offering, facilitating the sale of, or creation of genuine or replica guns, ammunition, bombs, explosives, hazardous materials, or weapons
- Content offering technical or how to information on guns, bombs, ammunition, or other offensive weapons
- This includes weapons of any kind, such as firearms, their integral parts and ammunition, military ordnance and grenades, knives marketed as weapons, other weapons such as metal knuckles, clubs, leaded canes
Banned Substances
Content promoting, selling or facilitating sale of:
- Alcoholic beverages
- Tobacco products, electronic cigarettes, or any other tobacco or nicotine related products
- Banned substances that are dangerous and not allowed broadly, such as ephedra, ma huang, salvia divinorum and synthetic drugs (K/Spice) or any substance defined as banned by Yahoo
- Recreational drugs and/or marijuana, including medical marijuana
- Drug paraphernalia, including products or information related to “beating” a drug test
- Prescription drugs, or Schedule I and Schedule II drugs
Copyright Protection
- Content that promotes copyright or trademark infringement. Content that infringes copyright, trademark, third parties' right of publicity/privacy, legal rights of others or is contrary to public policy
- Promotion, sale or facilitated sale of counterfeit, fake or bootleg products, or replicas or imitations of designer products
- Any content promoting or facilitating illegal file transfer or allowing users to freely download or exchange software including music files, games, movies, and software applications
- For example, peer-to-peer (referred to as P2P) is a type of transient Internet network that allows a group of computer users with the same networking program to connect with each other and directly access files from one another's hard drives
Illicit Content
Any content that may be in violation of any applicable laws or regulations or promotes or facilitates:
- Illegal activities or products, or products of a questionably legal nature
- Promotion, offering or dissemination of fraudulent goods, services, or documents, schemes or promotions, including any make-money-fast or pyramid schemes
- Distribution of falsely obtained passwords, hacking, phreaking, emulators, ROMs, or illegal MP3 activity, pyramid schemes, evading the law
- Fake IDs, diplomas, or education transcripts
- Academic paper-writing services and the sale of pre-written essays, theses and dissertations
- Hacking, surveillance, interception or descrambling equipment and techniques
- The sale of government IDs or police items
- Sale or trade of whole or part of Endangered Species and related prohibited product
Viruses/Spyware/Malware
- Content or code that distributes viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horse, spyware, other unsafe downloads, or other contaminants that may be used to access and modify, delete, or damage any data file or other computer program
- Any software covertly installed on a user's machine (as distinct from the addition of a cookie to the appropriate location within the user's browser software) is not allowed
Specifically, Spyware can be construed as a program or code that:
- Is installed without the user's full knowledge
- Cannot be easily uninstalled or disabled
- Covertly transmits information about the user's activities to a remote host often used to facilitate delivery of advertising messages, often with a high frequency; and those applications that are a sub-set of spyware being, malware (malicious code)
- Malware includes viruses, worms, and Trojans: A defining characteristic of malware is that it is intended to cause harm or be otherwise used for criminal purposes
Examples of spyware in this category are keystroke loggers, password sniffers, spam launchers, remote access tools (RATs), and screen capture utilities
Adware
- Adware is advertising delivery software hosted on a user's machine which has been downloaded by the user typically as part of a product or service
Examples: Toolbars, emoticons, and other desktop applications. Adware may be allowed in certain circumstances
Definitions
- Desktop applications are software downloaded to a user's machine from the web usually delivering some product or service (e.g. instant chat, dating services, emoticons & toolbars)
- A toolbar is a window whose buttons represent tools, menu items, or actions - the toolbar can be located along the top, bottom, or sides of a frame window or can "float" and be positioned anywhere on the user's desktop
- Any applications or software that introduces ad injection is not allowed.
To be considered acceptable, adware must:
- Be deliberately downloaded by the user in fair and equitable exchange for a product or service;
- Be downloaded under circumstances where the user makes a positive opt-in to the service under terms and conditions that are overt, clear, and in no way attempt to confuse or deceive;
- Offer the user a clear, effective, and simple path to unsubscribe from any relevant service and facilitate easy de-installation of the associated advertising software; and
- Operate a reasonable frequency control policy for Inventory (e.g. each user to be exposed to not more than three (3) advertising impressions in any 24 hour period)
Bulk Marketing/Spam Marketing
Bulk marketing products or services if the stated or implied use of the product is unsolicited spam
Collection of Personally Identifiable Information
Content related to collection (as primary purpose) of personally identifiable information to be used for consumer or promotional marketing, or related purposes
Embargoed or Sanctioned Products/Services
Content related to products or services from countries subject to U.S. trade sanctions or embargo
Family Planning
Sites or content that promote adoption, surrogacy services, or prenatal gender determination
Financial Content
- Content that promotes or facilitates investment offers, solicitation of funds, credit repair, trading services, payday loans, loan products, etc.
- Products, services or methods of removing items from a user's credit report
Unlawful or Unlicensed Gambling
Content that promotes or facilitates online or offline gambling in jurisdictions where the activity is not permitted by law or the offeror is not licensed.
Uncontrolled or Un-moderated User Generated Content
- Social media, online discussion groups/forums, or other user-generated content that is not subject to any control, classification, or moderation
- Control or moderation may include but is not limited to automated moderation or classification, human moderation, user reporting, blocking or flagging, or other similar controls available for use by users or site moderators
- User-generated content includes but is not limited to RSS feeds, blogs, personal home pages comprised of or independent/chronological publication of personal thoughts, photographs, and Weblinks
Publisher Obligations
(a) Publisher agrees that The Publisher is the owner of all right, title, and interest in, or is validly licensed to (i) display, use, store, and make available the entire contents and subject matters, accessible through websites and/or mobile applications either owned and/or operated by or licensed to the Publisher (the “Publisher Media”), and (ii) to monetize the advertising inventory available on the Publisher Media (the “Inventory”) for the placement of any type of advertising by Yahoo including paid search (“Yahoo Ads”).
(b) Publisher agrees that it is the Publisher's responsibility to ensure that all of its Publisher Media: comply with all applicable federal, state/provincial, and local laws, rules or regulations. With respect to unlawful activity or content contributed to the Publisher Media without the Publisher's knowledge or awareness of its unlawfulness, the Publisher ensures that it operates a “notice and takedown” policy that complies with applicable law, rules and regulation.
(c) Publisher will post a privacy policy at least on or through a link from the main page of each Publisher website included in Publisher Media, each web page within such site that displays Yahoo Ads and all apps must provide a conspicuous and easily understandable privacy statement that is accessible from the app store and within the app, that complies with all applicable laws and clearly and conspicuously, and in close proximity:
---> (i) expressly identifies that the Publisher uses third-party advertising companies to serve advertisements, or otherwise engages in the advertising or media type contemplated by this terms and conditions when the user visits the Publisher's Media;
---> (ii) discloses that third-party advertising companies may use non-personally identifiable information about the user's visits to the Publisher's Media in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to the user;
---> (iii) discloses that the user can find more information about these practices and the user's opt out choices concerning these practices by visiting one of the following hyperlinks: https://legal.yahoo.com/xw/en/yahoo/privacy/optout/index.html, http://www.aboutads.info/consumers#opt-out/, or http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp. For clarity, Publisher has to provide a hyperlink to only one of the aforementioned webpages. In the context of disclosing the relationship with a third-party advertising company, Publisher may refer to Yahoo specifically or third-party advertising companies generally.
(d) Publisher will not provide personal information as disclosed, without the user's knowledge, under false pretenses, or to companies that resell, trade, barter or otherwise misuse that personal information.
(e) Publisher will place on the Publisher Media an ad tag(s) or code necessary in order to enable the display of Yahoo Ads;
(f) Publisher will ensure that Yahoo Ads are not displayed on any site other than the Publisher Media or any apps not registered with Yahoo; and
(g) Publisher will ensure the ad call always contains accurate information about Publisher's approved app or site. This includes but is not limited to placement size, timestamp, top-level URL for websites; respective AppID for mobile applications.
(h) Publisher will use commercially reasonable efforts to minimize the occurrence of the display of any advertisement or messaging (such as pop-up windows or expanding banners) that may obscure the Yahoo Ad or prevent or prohibit its display.
(i) Publisher will ensure the Yahoo Ads are clearly labeled and distinguishable from other content within Publisher Media. For search, all implementations displaying Yahoo Ads must be labeled to preserve a user's search intent by clearly indicating throughout that a search is being performed on a specific keyword. For Native Ads, refer to the Native Ad Guidelines below for more information.
(j) Publisher will respond adequately to user requests from the Publisher Media pages, site or app.
(k) Publisher will ensure compliance with all applicable laws, regulations and local industry requirements, e.g., the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA"), (ii) EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679) (“GDPR”), (iii) United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”), (iv) Information Commissioner’s Office Age Appropriate Design Code ("AADC") and (v) Data Protection Commission’s Fundamentals for a Child-Oriented Approach to Data Processing ("Fundamentals"), and will also not send any inventory through our platforms that is directed at or likely to be accessed by children under the age of 18.
Prohibited Activities
When utilizing Yahoo Services, entities shall not and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to engage in the following activities:
Attempt to, or otherwise damage, reverse engineer, decipher, decompile, translate or disassemble any software components or code of the Services, Ads or Tags, not authorize, enable or engage in modification of Yahoo servers, platforms or API in any way.
Attempt in any way to alter, modify, eliminate, conceal, or otherwise render inoperable or ineffective the website tags, source codes, links, pixels, modules or other data provided by or obtained from Yahoo's Services that allows Yahoo's Services to measure ad performance and provide its service.
Adapt, alter, sell, reproduce, copy, rent, lease, sublicense, transfer or otherwise make available the Services, Ads or Tags, or any copies thereof to any third party (including, but not limited to, bidding for Ads or Tags while simultaneously selling the bid-for Ad or Tag on the Service or any other service), or create derivative works therefrom;
Publisher will not authorize, enable or engage in unauthorized implementations, including (i) the use, display, syndication, sublicensing, or delivery of the Yahoo Ads anywhere other than on the Publisher Media; or (ii) display of Yahoo Ads within pop-over or pop-under windows, or in or through downloadable application(s).
Use the Services to upload, post, or otherwise disseminate any malware, viruses or other destructive or malicious code;
Use the Services in a manner that violates any applicable laws, rules, or regulations, or third party proprietary, privacy or other rights;
Use the Services in a manner that is deceptive, unethical, false or misleading;
Publisher will not authorize, enable or engage in any of the following:
- store or cache information obtained from any Yahoo Ads, including but not limited to "crawl", "spider", index or in any non-transitory manner.
- forwarding, masking or cloaking URLs or engaging in deceptive practices.
- anything which delays the timing or operation of ad calls to Yahoo.
- the display of new or replacement of Yahoo Ads without the user navigating to a new content or without the current contents being refreshed by a user; or
- automatically directing the user to another page from the Publisher Media that contains Yahoo Ads.
- automatically direct the user to a landing page not relevant to the Yahoo Ad.
- display Yahoo Ads that cover up, overlay or hide areas of interest with typical interaction.
- clicking a Yahoo Ad as the only way to exit a screen or navigate away from a website page or an app.
- place Yahoo Ads close to where users are likely to accidentally click i.e. near links, buttons, drop-down menus.
Circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with the proper working of the Services, including any security-related features or authentication measures of the Services, or otherwise attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Services, or attempt to gain access to secured portions of the Services;
Breach, disable, tamper, interfere or attempt to interfere with the full, complete, immediate, and direct display of any Ads and any third-party websites accessed via links on Ads;
Publisher will not authorize, enable or engage in any of the following:
- edit, modify (including without limitation, resizing the Ads), obscure or prevent the display of all, or any part of, the Yahoo Ads.
- minimize, remove, obscure, or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any advertiser landing page.
- interfere user navigation on the site, page, apps with Yahoo Ads or interfere interface flow with a Yahoo interaction.
Engage in any deceptive or fraudulent activity as determined by Yahoo in its sole reasonable discretion, including, without limitation, using unsolicited email to promote ads, or placing Tags on pages with no content;
Invalid Activity
- Invalid Activities are clicks or installs generated by deceptive or prohibited methods, or any other deceptive practices as determined by Yahoo.
- Invalid Activities are sometimes intended to artificially or maliciously drive up clicks or installs on an advertisement (which increases the costs to the advertiser) or the Publisher's earning (increase profits for the website owner hosting the advertisements).
- Publisher will not authorize, enable or engage directly or indirectly in prohibited practices which are practices implemented with the aim to generate Invalid Activities as defined here above and that include also, but are not limited to, the following: Using methods such as impression-generating tools, robots, click-exchange programs, autosurf or paid-to-surf programs to generate clicks.
- Examples of Invalid Activities: repeated manual clicking; clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software; clicks being redirected to a landing page that does not accurately reflect the initial Yahoo Ad.
Interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Service or anyone's use of the Service;
Interfere or attempt to interfere with the full, complete, immediate, and direct display of any Ads and any third-party websites accessed via links on Ads;
Generate clicks without referring URLs or from non-approved root URLs, generate fraudulent clicks, or otherwise use any method that may lead to false or artificially high numbers of clicks or impressions by any person, robot, automated program or similar device;
Incentivized Activity
The Publisher will ensure that the Publisher Media will not:
- include pay-to-install or pay-to-click offers.
- make deceptive claims that mislead users to click on a Yahoo Ad. This includes, but is not limited to, promising to raise money for third parties, or placing images next to Yahoo Ads that encourage clicking or installing on the Yahoo Ad with such claims.
- actively encourage or allow clicks made by users who subsequently receive some reward or incentive for making the click, for example, additional loyalty points added to an account redeemable for goods upon achievement of certain targets. This type of Inventory may or may not operate a “timeout” on repeat clicks on the same link from the user within a given time span.
- incentivize users (e.g., by issuing rewards redeemable for goods or gift cards) to view or click on content containing ads or the ads themselves. For clarity, offering experiential rewards (e.g., an in-game experience or upgrade) for viewing ads is permitted.
Provide multiple bid requests to Yahoo for the same Placement, as determined by Yahoo in its sole reasonable discretion; or Publisher will not authorize, enable or engage in stack, hide, overlay multiple Yahoo Ads in a single ad placement.
Use the Services in any service bureau or time-share arrangement. Company shall be responsible for all action or inaction of third-party owners or operators of Company Sites.
Video Advertising Specific Requirements
The following requirements apply only to video advertising within the Service.
Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange. If Company is providing Placements within the Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange, Company shall comply with the following:
(a) All domains for the Placements must be pre-approved by Yahoo. Companies submitting a site for review that requires a log-in must provide Yahoo with a test or active user ID and password to verify the placement. Ad server domains and all sites that generate traffic through pop-unders, regardless of whether or not the Yahoo player is on the page being popped, will not be approved in the Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange.
(b) For domains listed in the Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange, Company must have the rights to display ads over video content on their site.
---> (1) Sites must have non-YouTube video ad units and may not display video ads over YouTube players or videos; and
---> (2) Company must either own the video content they are running ads against or have the licenses to serve ads against that content and not be in breach of existing Company agreements for offering the Placements.
(c) The domain where the Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange ad appears must be available to Yahoo at run time. Company may disable Site Level Reporting (e.g. to avoid channel conflict) if they do not wish to make this information transparent to buyers.
(d) Companies that utilize VAST tag must use the Yahoo JavaScript tag to verify domain at runtime.
(e) All setups and use of iFramed placements must be approved by Yahoo prior to implementation. Company must pass the site where the iFrame appears, not the iFrame domain.
(f) All Placements must conform exactly to the settings for the associated market connection (e.g. if a market connection is marked as supporting audio, then none of the video placements in that connection may be muted.)
(g) The full ad player must be visible to the user and not obstructed by other audio or visual site elements.
(h) Company must not stream more than one video unit on a page at any given time.
(i) Except for long-form content (i.e. greater than 10 minutes of video content), there must be a 1:1 relationship between pre-roll video ad views and content views. For long-form content, multiple ads may be displayed before the same piece of content.
(j) Except for linear television placements, all mid-roll, pre-roll, and playlist ads must have a ratio of at least 60 seconds of content for each ad that is displayed. Playlist functionality implies playing ads and content back to back with no end as long as the page is still open.
(k) In order for a placement to be considered in-stream pre-roll rather than in-banner, there must be at least 60 seconds of content after the ad plays.
(l) Skip functionality may only be enabled by a Publisher on the Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange if Yahoo's skip button is utilized.
(m) The Yahoo Policy team uses third-party technologies to validate the safety of the Yahoo Ad Tech Video Exchange. Sites must not block Yahoo detection methods (e.g. Integral Ad Science JavaScript or WhiteOps) and have measurable traffic as determined by web audience measurement tools.
Advertisement Specific Requirements. Advertisers utilizing third-party skip buttons or ad-extender units must label their creative and ad with the maximum length of the creative.
Content Quality Guidelines
The Publisher will ensure that the Publisher Media contains useful, genuine, information-rich sites, pages and apps that clearly and accurately describe the content. The content does not contain any of the material of the type identified in the Prohibited Content section above. Sites:
- may not use “click bait” content, “cookie cutter” approaches to or create generic “doorway” pages just for the purpose of monetization with little or no original content.
- must avoid hidden text or links.
- may not publish excessive, misleading or inappropriate content to impact ad selection.
- may not place excessive, repetitive or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of site or app.
- may not improve Publisher's site's search engine ranking by including deceptive, manipulative content or construction.
- may not use excessive, duplicate or overlapping advertisements.
- may not feature material that is or may reasonably be considered to be a misrepresentation.
- may not mislead or deceive users into downloading software, including but not limited to mimic other downloadable software or apps or otherwise misrepresent the nature or purpose of the download or app.
- may not prevent reasonable and legitimate efforts to block the download, installation or execution of the application. It is the Publisher's responsibility to ensure that any downloadable app is the authorized version of that app.
- may not require a user to download files or programs to access a site.
- may not attempt to install software or ActiveX controls without appropriate notice and informed user consent.
- may not change user preferences, reset default home pages, resize browser windows, disable back buttons, or otherwise interfere with a user's ability to navigate, without appropriate notice and user consent. Applications that change user settings may only do so in a manner that is compliant with these guidelines and must clearly disclose if settings, programs or other apps are being changed in the user's device.
Apps Quality Guidelines
Only Publisher apps distributed through the Apple App Store or Google Play store are eligible to use Yahoo ad products. Mobile applications available only through other third-party distributors are not permitted to promote Yahoo Ads. Apps must remain in compliance with all Apple App Store and/or Google Play store terms and conditions in order to be eligible to promote Yahoo Ads.
All user notices shown as part of the user consent and installation process must be in clear language and prominently displayed.
Publisher must always provide conspicuous notice to the user that clearly discloses in an understandable manner specific behaviors such as:
- adding an application.
- changing any of the user's device settings.
- accessing data or information from a user's device beyond what is necessary for the Publisher's app to function as disclosed.
- causing known material adverse effects on system performance for typical users.
Apps may not:
- install any app without prior notice and express user consent.
- provide misleading or irrelevant alert messaging when promoting or executing software downloads.
- take control of a user's device maliciously.
- modify the security or other settings that protect user privacy or otherwise cause damage to the normal operation of the user's device.
- collect personally identifiable information through the use of a keystroke logging function (e.g., storing username and password) or induce the user to provide personally identifiable information by intentionally misrepresenting the identity of the person seeking the information.
- collect, use or share any information, including but not limited to personally identifiable information, that exceeds the types, uses or disclosure of information expressly described in the app's privacy policy.
- permit any malicious code or pirated software to be distributed in, by or bundled with an app.
- allow any app to be bundled with material violating any of these guidelines.
Native Ad Guidelines
Labeling
- Use a clear label - Sponsored Marker (Required)
- "Starburst" ad mark must be displayed together with “Sponsored” or “Ad” to distinguish ads that link to a traditional landing page environment.
- Pixel requirement: 20x20 or 40x40
- Use "Install" with app advertisers and "Learn More" with non-app advertisers.
- Labels should be readable at a glance without straining. Contrast between the background color of the implementation and the text needs to be strong enough so the label is readable. Best practice is to make the label the same size as the ad text.
- Place the label so users know at the beginning of their interaction that this is an ad. For example, top right - considering, in general, users read from top to bottom; left to right.
Graphical Distinction
- Use Graphical elements, like borders, lines, shading, etc to help users see where the ad starts/ends and content begins/ceases.
- A clear visual element that signals to users that this part of the experience is different is the goal. For example, a different colored background or a different colored border are ways to distinguish ads from organic content.
Symbol
- Ad implementation must include a Radiant dollar or Adchoices symbol, link to http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/relevantads.html an informational page that explains who served the ad, whether the ad was targeted, and gives users a link to opt-out of behavioral targeting.
User Interactions and Experience
- Native ads should behave similar to other content without additional focus. For example, when users scroll through the content feed, promoted content should get the same duration of focus as other organic content. Or, if users click to play organic video content, promoted video should be clicked to play as well.
Refer to the Yahoo Developer Network documentation for further implementation details.
Modifications
Yahoo reserves the right to update, change, revise, modify, and supplement the information within this Supply Policy at any time. Company's continued use of the Service following the posting of such changes to the Supply Policy will constitute Company's acceptance of any such changes.
Yahoo Rights
Yahoo reserves the right to reject, approve or remove any Publisher Media that does not comply with our policies or for any reason at our sole discretion. This includes Publisher's sites, pages, and/or apps that promote content, products, services, behaviors, activities or topics that may negatively impact our users’ experience, or affect our relationships or trust with our media buyers, advertisers or partners, or are contrary to our beliefs, competitive position, reputation, interests or philosophy which are subject to change at any time.
Behaviors related to advertising events including but not limited to impressions, clicks, installs, etc. are used to analyze for patterns of abuse or policy violation. If we determine that a Publisher account site, page or app might pose a risk to our media buyers and advertisers or advertising network, we may suspend the access to and/our our purchase of such Publisher Media for further investigation, terminate the Publisher account or decline to accept future Publisher Media with the Publisher to protect our media buyers' and advertisers' interests or network health.