Every banner on Banners City is published by an advertiser, not by us. These rules exist so that the grid stays safe and honest for the people who look at it. They apply to the banner itself, to the link and to the site the link leads to. Breaking them is the fastest way to lose a spot.
The basics
- You are responsible for what you publish and for everything a visitor finds after clicking it.
- Offer what you actually sell: the real product, the real price, the real conditions.
- The destination must match the banner. Sending a visitor somewhere other than promised is a violation in itself.
- Follow the law that applies where your ad is seen, including advertising, consumer, tax and licensing rules for your industry.
Fraud and deception
We remove, without warning, banners and destinations that involve:
- scams and phishing: pages that collect passwords, card numbers, document scans or one-time codes under a false pretext;
- get-rich-quick offers, guaranteed returns, “risk-free” investment, doubling of cryptocurrency, pyramid and matrix schemes, recruitment into such schemes;
- fake giveaways, lotteries and prizes, “you have won” claims, fake countdowns, fake stock levels and invented discounts;
- false or unverifiable claims about a product, a price, a delivery time or a company;
- sale of goods the advertiser does not have, cannot deliver or does not intend to deliver;
- moving the visitor to a channel where payment is untraceable in order to avoid responsibility.
Impersonation and misleading design
- Do not pretend to be a person, company, brand, public body or media outlet you are not, and do not use someone else’s name, logo or design to suggest a connection that does not exist.
- Do not imitate the interface of Banners City, of a browser, of an operating system or of a well-known service — no fake system alerts, fake update prompts, fake cursors, fake close buttons, fake input fields.
- Do not hide where the link goes: no cloaking, no chains of redirects, no showing moderators one destination and visitors another.
- Do not disguise advertising as editorial content, news, a warning or a personal message.
Illegal and restricted goods and services
Never allowed:
- drugs, precursors, prescription medicines and substances sold to bypass drug laws;
- weapons, ammunition, explosives and instructions for making them;
- counterfeit or stolen goods, forged documents, hacked accounts, stolen data;
- sexual services, human trafficking, forced labour;
- endangered species and products made from them;
- services for faking identity or age checks, and tools made for fraud.
Regulated activities — gambling, lending and other financial services, alcohol, tobacco and nicotine products, pharmacies, medical practice, legal and tax advice, dating, cryptocurrency exchange — are allowed only where the advertiser holds the licence required in the target market and follows local restrictions on how such advertising may look. We may ask for proof of the licence and may keep a banner offline until we receive it.
Hate, harassment and violence
- No attacks on people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, disability or serious disease.
- No harassment, threats, publication of private information to expose someone, or content that encourages others to attack a person.
- No praise, support or representation of terrorism, violent extremism or organised crime.
- No graphic violence or cruelty to animals used to attract attention.
Adult content and minors
- No pornography or sexually explicit imagery, and no advertising of sexual services.
- Nothing that sexualises a minor, in any form. Such content is removed immediately, the account is closed and the case is reported to the authorities.
- No offers directed at children that are inappropriate for their age, and no images of identifiable minors without the consent of their parents or guardians.
Health, safety and personal data
- No miracle cures, guaranteed treatment results, unapproved medical claims or products presented as a replacement for medical care.
- No misleading weight-loss, fertility or mental-health claims, and no before-and-after images that misrepresent a typical result.
- No publication of another person’s private data — address, phone number, documents, medical or financial details — without their consent.
- No content that encourages self-harm, eating disorders or dangerous behaviour.
Technical rules
- No malware, cryptominers, automatic downloads, drive-by installs or scripts that try to break out of the banner.
- No destinations that hijack the back button, block navigation, open endless pop-ups or lock the visitor’s browser.
- No sound that starts by itself, and no strobing or rapidly flashing imagery that can trigger a seizure.
- The banner must be legible at the size it is bought, and video is allowed only on the formats where it is offered.
How we enforce these rules
Banners are reviewed before publication. After publication we keep looking: we re-check destinations, we react to reports from visitors and rights owners, and we act on requests from regulators and courts.
Depending on how serious the problem is, we may ask for a correction, pause the banner, remove it, refuse future placements or close the account. Serious cases — fraud, sexual content involving minors, malware, content that threatens someone’s safety — mean immediate removal and closure of the account without warning. A placement removed for a violation is not refunded; if we later find that we were wrong, we restore the placement and extend it by the time it was offline, or refund it.
Reporting a banner
Anyone can report a banner by writing to the support address on the Contact page. Tell us where the banner is — the location page and its position in the grid — attach a screenshot if you can, and describe what is wrong with it. We look at every report and answer within 5 business days. Copyright and trademark complaints have their own procedure, described on the Copyright and trademark page.
Appeals
If your banner was removed and you believe the decision was wrong, reply to the message we sent you or write to the support address with the request number. Explain what we misread and attach evidence — a licence, a certificate, a rights holder’s permission. We answer within 5 business days.