Criteo Advertising Guidelines | Criteo

Criteo Advertising Guidelines

If you are looking for the Criteo Supply Partner Guidelines, please click here.

Criteo and its affiliated platforms, including BidSwitch, operate through the highest-quality network. For this reason, Criteo’s advertiser partners must at all times adhere to and comply with these guidelines.

To ensure a trustworthy advertising ecosystem, Criteo requires all its advertising partners to uphold high ethical standards. Each of Criteo’s advertising partners is responsible for ensuring that their content, products, or services comply with applicable laws and regulations, including applicable data protection and privacy laws and regulations.

Advertising must not endanger the security of Criteo Platform or its affiliated platforms or their users or make a call to a service which endangers the security of the Criteo Platform or its affiliated platforms or their users.

Criteo reserves the right to reject or remove a partner from its network, or to suspend access to the Criteo Platforms temporarily or permanently, at its sole discretion.

1. Prohibited Content

Criteo does not display content, products, or services that fall under the following prohibited categories:

1.1. Harassment or Hate Speech

Advertising or images that insult, defame, or threaten an individual or groups of individuals based upon race or ethnic origin, national origin, gender, religious affiliation, disability, age, or sexual orientation/gender identity.

1.2. Adult Content

Sexual, highly suggestive, or pornographic advertisements or images including but not limited to nudity, sex toys, and videos and/or images of people in sexually suggestive or provocative positions.

1.3. Deceptive, False, or Misleading Products/Services

Deceptive, misleading, purposely ambiguous, or fraudulent claims, images, offers, or business practices including but not limited to ads or content that is fraudulently or misleadingly inducing a user to click on an ad.

1.4. Illegal, or Legally Questionable, Activity and Dishonest, or Predatory Content or Activities

Advertising for products, services or activities that constitute, facilitate, or promote illegal products, services, or activities (or that otherwise enable dishonest conduct) including but not limited to illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, and fake documents.

1.5. Intellectual property infringement, Piracy, or Counterfeit Products

Infringement of any third-party intellectual property rights is prohibited. Advertising must not include or contain any content that infringes the intellectual property rights of any third party. Examples include but are not limited to misappropriation of a trademark/logo, distribution of copyrighted material without the express authorization of the owner, counterfeit goods, pirated content, and ads that include an individual’s image or likeness without their permission.

1.6. Shocking/Offensive Content

Advertising that contains gratuitous violence, sexually explicit, pornographic, or obscene content, or other offensive, shocking, gory, violent, unsafe, profane, threatening, dangerous, sensational, disrespectful, or disturbing content is prohibited.

1.7. Firearms and Weapons

Advertising for firearms and ammunition is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, advertising for ammunition, firearms, or related paraphernalia (including accessories), paintball guns, guns, air guns, stun guns, explosives, bombs, knives or weapons of any kind, and fireworks.

1.8. Drugs

Advertising for illegal drugs or related paraphernalia is prohibited. Ads for Drugs, both illicit and recreational, defined as substances that alter mental state or induce “highs,” as well as ads for products or services marketed as facilitating drug use, are prohibited.

1.9. Children’s Sites

Advertising in any website (or portion of websites) or mobile app that specifically targets children under the age required for consent to the collection of personal information, as defined by applicable law.

1.10. Dating

Advertising for any dating site that promotes affairs or infidelity, escort or prostitution services, or mail-order brides is prohibited.

1.11. Unsecure Content

Advertising for products, including but not limited to adware, spyware, P2P application, malware, viruses, worms, Trojan horses are prohibited. Any advertising containing harmful computer code that interferes with or disrupts the integrity or performance of the Criteo Service is prohibited.

2. Restricted Content

Advertising of restricted categories of products and services (listed below) may be permitted only in certain countries and under specific conditions, with the express approval of Criteo.

2.1. Online Pharmacies

Advertising for online pharmacies selling medicines with prescriptions and informative websites related to medicines.

2.2. Medication and Healthcare Products

This includes advertising for prescription drugs, controlled or restricted medicines, recreational drugs, erectile or sexual enhancers, paternity tests, and any product that claims to have a similar effect to illegal substances or weight loss drugs that make unrealistic claims. In general, products that treat a healthcare condition.

2.3. Alcohol

Advertising of hard liquor, spirits, wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages.

2.4. Gambling

Advertising for online or offline gambling. This includes without limitation, online and offline poker, bingo and other types of gambling, lotteries, race books, sports betting, online gambling-related information, and online non-casino games played for money or prizes.

2.5. Tobacco

Advertising of tobacco or tobacco-related products, vaping products, or related paraphernalia (including but not limited to electronic cigarettes, vapes, vaping devices, pipes, bongs, cigarettes, cigars, rolling papers, smokeless tobacco, or any other related products).

2.6. Psychics, Astrology, Fortune Tellers, etc.

Advertising of psychic products or services, including fortune-tellers, mediums, astrologists, tarot card readings, witchcraft, hypnosis, cult /occult activities and similar products or services.

2.7. Financial Products Services and Insurance Sites

Advertising of financial products/services includes banking/investment/money management products and services, loans, business opportunities, etc. Advertising of insurance products/services includes home insurance, personal insurance, life insurance, car insurance, health insurance, etc.

3. Ad Formats and Technical Guidelines

3.1. Advertising Shall Not Contain Any of the Following:

3.2. Advertiser Shall:

4. Privacy and Users’ Protected Characteristics

Promotion of content, product or services that targets one or several of the following non-exhaustive list of users’ protected characteristics is prohibited unless expressly approved by Criteo in permitted countries:

5. Audiences

Criteo prohibits the creation or extension of audiences or any use of its platform’s features that would introduce a targeting bias towards groups or populations defined by one or more of the above-listed users’ protected characteristics and resulting in an inappropriate prejudice in favour of or against those groups/populations.

Criteo reserves the right to detail, modify or update this policy at any time. Criteo will post these changes directly on this page and will notify our advertiser partners of such changes.

Last updated: January 2023