Advertiser's advertising environment must be appropriate in the context of About.com Network on which Advertiser's advertising content shall appear. The advertising environment includes the advertising content itself and the specific destination URL. In addition to the content guidelines listed below, Advertisers must have a privacy policy that is clearly posted either on the landing page from the advertisement or on the Advertiser's home page. If the privacy policy is found only on the home page, there must be a link to the home page from the landing page. Where the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") applies, Advertisers must take appropriate measures to ensure that they are COPPA compliant.
About.com must approve all advertising content prior to posting on the About.com. Once advertising content has been posted on the About.com Sites, About.com shall have the right to remove previously approved advertising content from About.com if About.com later determines that Advertiser's advertising does not meet About.com's standards or comply with About.com's policies.
Below are the About.com content guidelines regarding advertising materials.
Advertising content that is inappropriate for all About.com Sites:
Tobacco - cigarettes, cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco, etc. and except for anti-smoking campaigns approved by About.com.
Guns - firearms, bullets, etc.
Non-FDA Drugs - Sites providing prescription drugs over the Internet - either without a prescription, or by providing a prescription themselves.
Applied to Canadian, Mexican and other offshore pharmacies; also, sites that promote links to them.
Applied to sites promoting banned or experimental pharmaceuticals that have not received FDA approval; for instance (but not exclusively).
Pornography
Defamatory, Threatening, Libelous - About.com supports the idea of the Internet as a broad forum for the sharing of ideas and information; however, advertisements for web sites espousing racial or religious epithets, advocating physical harm against people or their property, or making blatantly false claims will not be trafficked.
Bad language, body parts, proxies for bad language
Gambling (except for Gambling related sites) - Gambling sites are those that accept wagers or require payment in exchange for the chance to win prizes, as well as sites that offer information or links related primarily to the promotion of gambling.
Applied to online casinos, sites with links to online casinos.
Not applied to sites with general travel resources for Las Vegas, Atlantic City, etc.
Not applied to gambling recovery programs.
Misleading language - using the word "free" in the advertisement to describe a contest or sweepstakes prize.
Fake IDs - Even if web sites include a disclaimer such as "novelty items only".
Excessive blinking or shaking creative
"System Errors" - any ad that mimics a system message of any sort will be rejected unless the word "Advertisement" is conspicuously included.
Black boxes/cable descramblers - Products that may facilitate illegal activity such as pirating cable television.
Work-at-home services and multilevel marketing
Email extraction software
Appz, Warez, Crackz, Hackz, etc. - Sites that sell cracked or pirated software, or promote the cracking or pirating of software are banned.
Run of Network / Children Related Guidesitesback to top
In addition to the advertising content listed in 3A, the following are also inappropriate for About.com Run of Network Advertising and About.com Children Related Guidesites:
The advertising content must be clearly identifiable as an advertisement and may not be disguised as editorial content, as determined by About.com.
Advertisers must fulfill the advertised offer as stated in the advertisement, including without limitation, not altering any offer periods, product offers or prices that are stated in the advertisement; unless Advertiser has obtained About.com's prior approval.
