Criteo Supply Partner Guidelines

Criteo operates through the highest quality supply network. For this reason, Criteo’s supply partners must always adhere and comply to these guidelines.

Criteo does not accept partners that display any content, products or services listed below.

The below listed topics are not exhaustive and Criteo reserves the right to reject or remove a partner from its network at its sole discretion.

In addition, Criteo’s supply partners are responsible for ensuring that their content, products or services comply with the applicable laws and regulations, including the applicable data protection and privacy laws and regulations. To learn more about your obligations related to the information of users and collection of consent, please click here.

Criteo reserves the right to detail, modify or update this policy at any time. In that case, Criteo will post such changes directly on this page and/or on any other place that Criteo deems appropriate.

Content Restrictions

 

 Criteo will not advertise on content that includes any of the following:

Private and Personal Information

Criteo adheres to all local privacy rules and regulations and cannot advertise on content that implies knowledge of a user’s sensitive condition, characteristic, or personal circumstances through its content.

This includes but is not limited to:

• Criminal History or Records
• Financial Status
• Personal Hardship (e.g., divorce, family problem, depression, foreclosure, etc.)
• Directly Identifying Information
• Sensitive Health Condition
• Sexual Orientation
• Sexual Interests and Practices
• Trade Union Membership

 

Commercial Incentives and Certain Financial Services

Criteo will not advertise on content that make exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims around financial gain.

This includes but is not limited to content that:

• Incentivize users to click to a third-party offering that is not associated with the content on the Site
• Make offers, or require signup to participate in a sweepstakes or access walled content
• Promote or facilitates Ponzi schemes, Pyramid schemes, get-rich-quick schemes, free-money offers or other money-making opportunities that are legally questionable
• Promote financial advice programs that exaggerate potential returns or provide “guarantees” of financial return
• Promote risk-free financial gain (e.g., “No risk! “Guaranteed!” “Huge Income” “100% return on your investment!” “Get-rich-quick” “Quick and Easy!” “Start Earning Today”)
• Provide information on tax evasion, money laundering and other illegal financial activities
• Address financial destitution or personal hardship (pay-day loans, debt, foreclosure)

Harassment, Hate Speech and Violence

This includes but is not limited to content that:

• Is hateful or discriminatory to any groups or individuals based upon their race, sex, nationality, religious affiliation, age or sexual orientation
• Insults, defames or threatens any groups or individuals
• Promotes disenfranchisement or harassment of groups or individuals
• Promotes hate groups, groups that assert supremacy or groups that encourage violence
• Promotes, glorifies or condones violence against others

• Provides information about, or advocates for, suicide or other forms of self-harm

Childrens’ Content

 This includes but is not limited to content that:

•  Target children under the age of 16
• Criteo, or its Supply Partner, has actual knowledge of it being used by children under 16.

Adult Content, Nudity, Pornography, and Sexual Encounters

Criteo will not work with pornographic or sexually- oriented content, including medical advice of a sexual nature.

This includes but is not limited to Site content that:

• Is sexually suggestive, explicit or pornographic in nature
• Includes nudity, sex toys, videos and/or images of people in sexually suggestive or provocative positions
• Promotes or facilitates casual sex or discreet encounters
• Includes sexually oriented cartoon images, including anime, manga, hentai, ecchi
• Relates to fetishes and sexual aids or sex toys
• Includes sexually explicit text, including jokes, erotic stories and descriptions of sexual acts
• Includes crude language or excessive profanity
• Comes with an “18 USC 2257” notice
• Contains images of people posing in a seductive manner, or wearing see-through or sheer garments
• Provides advice on sexual performance, or advice on STDs

Shocking, Offensive or Misleading Content

Criteo does not work with content that is intentionally designed to shock or horrify the user, or garner traffic and attention through wilfully misleading or grotesque claims.

This includes but is not limited to Site content that:

• Shares mistruths and falsehoods
• Contains language or images which are violent, disrespectful, vulgar or explicit
• Is “NSFW” or “NMS,” or content that is designed to repulse, disgust, or repel the user
• Includes any deliberate use of fraudulent, factually incorrect, or deceptive claims for the purpose of attracting traffic (i.e. click-baiting)
• Promotes astrology, psychics, or paranormal categories that makes claims of guaranteeing results or accuracy

Political, Activist and Religious Content

 This includes but is not limited to content that:

• Work in official support of a specific political candidate, cause, initiatives or events
• Advocate for religious or philosophical beliefs, any ritual of a specific religion, or religious agendas or events

Alcohol, Tobacco, Illegal Drugs and Paraphernalia

 This includes but is not limited to Site content that:

•  Facilitates or promotes the use of cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, tobacco pipes, rolling papers or smokeless tobacco
• Primarily features excessive consumption of alcohol
• Promotes substances that alter the mental state for the purpose of recreation, or otherwise induce “highs.” Examples: Cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, marijuana, cocaine substitutes, mephedrone, “legal highs”
• Promotes or facilitates recreational drug use, including content related to pipes, bongs, or cannabis coffee shops
• Provides instructions about producing, purchasing, or using recreational drugs
• Includes tips or recommendations on drug use
• Relates to marijuana use (including medical or recreational marijuana, even in jurisdictions where it may be legal under local law)
• Promotes the sale of a legal substance that provides the same effect as an illegal drug (e.g., salvia, kratom)

Gambling

 This includes but is not limited to content that:

• Include gambling products and services, including lotteries, casinos, etc.
• Promote online or illegal casinos or gambling

Firearms and Weapons

This includes but is not limited to content that:

• Promotes or facilitates the sale of ammunition, firearms, guns, air guns, explosives, bombs, knives or weapons of any kind, and fireworks

• Teaches how to make bombs or other explosives, or provides explicit instructions on how to harm or kill human beings

Illegal Activity

This includes but is not limited to:

• Copyright infringement
• Illegal downloads
• Human trafficking, prostitution
• Sales of illegal good or services
• Information on tax evasion or other financial schemes
• Creating or obtaining fake or false documents such as passports, or fake identity
• Information or products for passing drug tests
• Promoting or facilitating hacking and cracking
• Infringing on any third-party intellectual property rights
• Using a third party’s logo or trademark without permission
• Promotes counterfeit goods
• Promoting illegal P2P, or other forms of file sharing

Site design, behavior and activity

This section addresses attributes of websites and apps that are not necessarily content related, but have impact on user experience and business success due to design elements or deceptive or fraudulent behaviors.

Non-intentional Traffic and Deceptive Practices

Criteo will not work with Supply Partners that generate ad impressions via deceptive or fraudulent mechanism.  Supply Partners and their content must not:

• Generate traffic from machine-initiated activity, such as botnets, traffic farms, servers hosting facilities, data centers, virtual machines, emulators and anonymous proxies, and other sources of invalid traffic
• Acquire traffic through malicious or deceptive activity (toolbar installations, malware, adware)
• Obfuscate, alter, or misrepresent the originating source, domain or URL
• Artificially generate or inflate clicks with the intent of misleading the buyer
• Aggressively arbitrage or “daisy chain,” resulting in significant and abnormal loading times, rendering or other computer software/hardware abnormal consumption
• Intentionally circumvent inventory quality filters via geo fencing and hide the original geolocation of the user
• Generate impressions that circumvent explicit choices of the consumer (e.g., ad blocking)
• Run code that interferes with or disrupts the integrity or performance of the Criteo
• Change user preferences or browser settings, or that initiate downloads without clear user consent

Malicious Site Design and Unfriendly Ad Formats

Criteo will not work with sites that have pages which are cluttered with ads, or which are deliberately designed to confuse users.  This includes sites that have ad formats which disrupt the user experience.

Criteo will not work with sites that:

• Contain hidden, “stacked” ad units that generate multiple ad impressions
• Contain code which generates artificial bid requests, impressions and clicks or pre-rendering ads
• Manipulate Criteo trackers (cookies) in any way or form
• Automatically redirect the user to another page without the user’s prior consent
• Are designed to be intentionally confusing and misleading for users
• Gate content on mobile apps
• Display ads on the lockscreen of mobile devices that are not lockscreen specific apps
• Force downloads for content access
• Contain, distribute or promote adware, spyware, P2P application, malware, viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other harmful computer code

 

In App Supply Guidelines

 

General In-App Guidelines

The following guidelines apply to any ad placement that can be found in the environment of your app:

• Ads should not be placed very close to or underneath buttons or any other object such that the placement of the ad interferes with a user’s typical interaction with the app or ad
• Ads should not be placed in a location that covers up or hides any area that users have interest in viewing during typical interaction
• Ads should not be placed in areas where users will randomly click or place their fingers on the screen
• Ads should not be placed in a way that interferes with navigating or interacting with the app’s core content and functionality without providing a clearly identifiable close-button to the use

 

Ad Density

App publisher shall not display ads that take up more than 30% of the vertical height of the main content portion of the screen. This includes “sticky” ads, in-line ads and Full-Screen Scrollover ads. Criteo makes an exception for Interstitials ads under our guidelines for the use of interstitials.

Apps Outside Of Official Stores

• Criteo does not authorize the display of its ads on any app originating from any source out of official stores (Itunes and Google Play). Exception made for ads running on a previous version of an app
• Criteo does not authorize the display of its ads on any app that has been excluded from official stores (Itunes and Google Play)

Auto-Refresh

As per our General Guidelines, impressions, clicks and conversions not resulting from a legitimate human user activity are prohibited. Any impression or click on an ad must be the result of a legitimate human user activity.

Criteo does not authorize the use of auto-refresh except under the following constraints:

• Only Sticky-Ads
• Only viewable ads
• The refresh rate must be at least every 30 seconds

Incentivized Or Rewarded Impressions / Clicks

• Criteo authorized the display of an ad as a reward purpose only if there is no forced interaction of the user with the ad such as incentivized click or impression.
• As per our general guidelines, Publisher shall not make use of any mechanism or monetizable reward to incentivize clicks or impressions.

Lockscreen Ads And Ads Running Outside Of The App Environment

Unless the purpose of the publisher app is explicitly advertised as a lockscreen utility, apps may not showcase ads or features that monetize the locked screen of the device.

The ads and ad placements used by the publisher will have to remain in the sole environment of the app declared by the publisher and serving them. Ads and ad placements associated with your app must not interfere with other apps, ads, or the operation of the device. This is including system or device buttons and ports. This also includes overlays, companion functionality, and widgetized ad units.

Native Ads

In case of use of our Native ads products, any native ad displayed on your app must be clearly marked as an ad. We require that native ads are clearly distinguishable from the rest of your app’s content and that ad must include clearly visible text that reads “Promoted,” “Sponsored,” “Ad,” or a localized version there-of. In-line with new industry self-regulatory guidance provided by the DAA, Criteo requires that all native ads displays the Privacy Information Icon and click region (redirecting to Criteo Privacy Page). The icon must be at least 20x20px and can be placed in any one of the four corners of the ad.

Pop-up Ads, Interstitials And Other Disruptive Ads

• Publisher shall not display on Postitial Ads with Countdown, Prestitial Ads or Pop-up Ads (Over, Under, or Upon Exit)
• Publisher shall not make use of Automatic Expandable ads (ads that automatically expands without the user’s engagement or action (e.g., click, touch))

Interstitials

Interstitial ads are full-screen ads appearing at natural app transition phases such as: pausing a game, results of a game, or between two different activities inside the app. When seeing an instertitial ad, a user has the option to either skip the ad and return to the app by tapping a clear and identifiable close button or tap on the ad and continue to its destination.

Publisher may use interstitials ads under the following constraints:

• Interstitial ads can only be displayed inside of the app environment serving them
• Ads should not be displayed in a way that will result in inadvertent or unintentional clicks
• The ad should display a clear and identifiable close button
• The Close button must be clearly identifiable
• The Close button must be off sufficient size to avoid fat finger patterns
• The Close button must be apart enough from the ad to avoid fat finger patterns

Sticky Footers

Publisher may use sticky footer ads under the following constraints:

1. Sticky ads must include a clearly identifiable close button to dismiss the ad:
   1. The Close button must be clearly identifiable
   2. The Close button must be of sufficient size to avoid fat finger patterns
   3. The close button must be apart enough from the ad to avoid fat finger patterns
2. The ad should not take up more than 30% of the vertical height of the main content portion of the screen

Ads should not be placed very close to or underneath buttons or any other object such that the placement of the ad interferes with a user’s typical interaction with the app or ad.

• Ads should not be placed in a location that covers up or hides any area that users have interest in viewing during typical interaction. Ads should not be placed in areas where users will randomly click or place their fingers on the screen.
• Ads should not be placed on a ‘dead end’ screen. There must be a way to exit a screen without clicking the ad (for example, a ‘back’ or ‘menu’ button). Otherwise, the user should be notified that the home button will exit the application.
• Ads should not be placed in applications that are running in the background of the device or outside of the app environment. It should be clear to the user which application the ad is associated with or implemented in. Examples include: ads served in widgets; ads launched before the app has opened or after the app has closed.
• Ads should not be placed in a way that prevents viewing the app’s core content. Ads should not be placed in a way that interferes with navigating or interacting with the app’s core content and functionality. Examples include: an interstitial ad triggered every time a user clicks within the app.
• Publishers are not permitted to place ads on any non-content-based pages such as thank you, error, log in, or exit screens. These are the screens that visitors may see upon launching the app, before potentially leaving the app or after performing a specific action on the screen such as a purchase or download. Ads that are the main focus on these types of screens can confuse a visitor into thinking that the ads are actual content, so do not place ads on such screens.

Ad Rendering

• Ad Injection – Ads rendered via an ad injection software mechanism is strictly forbidden especially when the intent is to:
  • Render ads on publishers or advertisers domains without their written approval
  • Replacing ads
  • Layer ads on top of existing ads
• Hidden Ads – Ads that are not humanly viewable either due to their size, color, opacity or other means
• Stacked Ads – Ads that are rendered on top of each other for which the goal is to generate multiple displays per a single bid request
• Browser pre-rendering – Making the ad call prior to rendering the ad without rendering the actual ad

IP address and other personally identifiable information manipulation

Criteo does not authorize an mechanism that would:

• Hide or manipulate the original IP address of the user in order to evade geo-targeting or obtain a higher CPM
• Rotate the IP address in order to avoid low-quality detection

Criteo does not authorize an mechanism that would:

• Obfuscate or alter the device_id or any personally identifiable information to by-pass the absence or refusal of consent from a specific user
• Create or generate a virtual device_id or any virtual personally identifiable information to by-pass the absence or refusal of consent from a specific user

User Agent manipulation

• Disguising the useragent as a legitimate useragent in order to hide:
  • A headless browser (for example PhantomJS, Chrome Headless, or the Lynx browser)
  • A mobile browser into a desktop browser and vice-versa
  • App traffic into either mobile, tablet or desktop browser
• Rotating the useragent string in order to avoid detection
• Changing the useragent between the impression useragent string and the click useragent string

Cookie abuse

• Cookie stuffing – Capturing cookies in the intent of inserting these cookies into a browser cache or http transaction in order to pretend a legitimate user has visited either an advertiser domain or a publisher domain.

HTTP Headers manipulation

• Unless authorized, manipulation any of HTTP headers fields is strictly prohibited

Auction Manipulation

• For a given impression, click or conversion, publishers may not make repeated ad calls for Criteo ads in a manner that attempts to interfere with, abuse, or gain an unfair advantage in the ad auction.

Prohibited Sources of Traffic

• Adware/Malware – Ad calls generated traffic on either impressions or clicks by software other than a legitimate browser
• Proxy traffic – Traffic that is routed via proxy servers where the original origin of the traffic is masked, including:
  • Anonymous proxies such as Tor
  • Proxy traffic used in the intent of generating low quality traffic
• Data Center – Traffic from servers hosted in co-location facilities
• Virtual machines – Traffic generated by virtual machines hosted either on a server or virtualized environment
• Crawler/Bot – Traffic that is generated by non-legitimate browsers or leveraging in an automated fashion legitimate browsers
• Traffic from countries or regions that are subject to sanctions by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) or any other applicable regulatory body.