At SmartNews, we are committed to maintaining a fair, transparent, and user-friendly advertising environment. We welcome a broad range of compelling and effective ads across our app and other platforms, and we rely on our advertising partners to align with this approach. By working together, we can ensure that the advertising remains engaging, respectful, and valuable for our users.
This policy outlines our guidelines and restrictions to ensure high standards of quality, integrity and user experience on our apps and platforms. Please note that this policy is not exhaustive and may be updated from time to time at SmartNews's sole business discretion as we continue to evolve our platforms and partnerships.
To uphold our standards, SmartNews prohibits the following types of advertisements:
Graphic content
Graphic depictions of violence or violent outcomes include:
blood, graphic injuries, exposed innards, or dead creatures, whether real or hyper-realistic
graphic depictions of real-life violence or medical or dental imagery
promoting, normalizing, inciting, or facilitating violence
sexual assault content, whether real or simulated
Overtly revolting content
Overtly gross, nauseating, or revolting material designed to shock includes:
depicting human and animal waste and other bodily fluids
portraying extreme filth (e.g., infestation, contamination) or other gross material
hyper-realistic, overtly revolting content
Anxiety-inducing health ads
depicting damage or trauma in any part of the body
portraying any expressions showing extreme or excessive distress
fear-based tactics such as playing on paranoia or alarmist framing of health issues (e.g. any text suggesting that you have a serious disease, spiders crawling on the screen)
emphasizing crude illustrations to highlight medical issues
making high-risk behavior or forms of self-harm seem acceptable or appealing (e.g. disordered eating, binge drinking, juice-only diet)
Body shaming
body shaming or appearance shaming such as mocking baldness, emphasizing body parts, pinching belly fat, reinforcing idealized beauty standards and other behaviors
Adult content
nudity or any other erotic imagery
sexually explicit language or obscenity
adult toys, gear, or tools designed to satisfy sexual desires
Misleading and deceptive practices
making unrealistic or unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of an item/service/method being advertised
recommending household items as treatments for curing health conditions
misrepresenting one's identity, associations, or endorsements, and other manipulated content
brand or product is confusingly similar to an existing genuine one, to the degree that it is likely to cause consumer misunderstanding
lack of a business name, website, physical address, and other contact information about the company
suspicious behavior, such as promising easy money with little to no effort, marketing too-good-to-be-true deals, or other behavior that misleads the consumers (i.e. "Get Rich Quick" schemes, items that are typically expensive or high-value at heavily discounted prices)
broken, abandoned, inaccessible, or dormant domain page
ad resembling news-like content causing confusion among users
promoting remedies or products that are known to be inherently harmful to body/mind, misleading consumers
potential security risks, such as phishing, malware, or other
untrue or speculative information
consumer experience concerns due to factors like spammy website, product recalls/safety alerts, pricing transparency matters, unresponsive post-purchase support, or order fulfillment issues
Discriminatory
any hate speech, depictions or imagery, including those based on protected group status
Prohibited goods, activities, and services
controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, including cannabis and dispensaries (despite legality in some US states)
*We will consider hemp-derived topical CBD products without any detectable THC on a case-by-case basis, provided there is verifiable documentation about the ingredients or components of any such products
tobacco products, including vaporizers
cryptocurrency
firearms, ammunition, or any explosive material
peer-to-peer small-scale donation campaigns for charitable or personal causes
extreme body modification (e.g., plastic surgery)
products, services, or activities to enable illegal or prohibited activities
products that are in direct competition with SmartNews (i.e. other news aggregators)
Editorial standards
any profanity, nonsensical repetition, formatting errors, typos, emojis, symbols, non-standard capitalization, grammatical errors, and other such aspects
blurry/distorted visuals, non-clickable buttons, or any sickness-triggering visuals such as flashing lights, high-contrast screen inversions, or rapidly changing images
Other
We examine the landing page or website for its authenticity, relevancy, and user experience. We review advertising for restricted product categories - including dating services, political ads, hemp-derived topical CBD products, and gambling - on a case-by-case basis to ensure they meet our standards, comply with applicable laws, and do not otherwise negatively impact our users' experience.
