Ads Policy

Our Principles

Argand Ads exists to send traffic to the sites that advertise — never to harvest data about you. These commitments hold for every campaign, no exceptions:

• No tracking, no profiling, no cookies. Ever. We don't build behavioral profiles or user dossiers.
• Contextual-only ads matched to page content, not your identity.
• Respects ad blockers — zero bypass, zero guilt-tripping.
• Human review for every campaign before it runs. No auto-approval, ever.
• Full refund if rejected or not reviewed within the SLA window.
• Creative and URL frozen after approval — no bait-and-switch.

What We Accept

Argand is a welcoming place to advertise. If you're a legitimate business, creator, school, non-profit, or developer with something real to offer, you're in good company. Our review is about honesty and safety, not gatekeeping legal categories. We accept ads across a broad range:

• Products & services — physical goods, subscriptions, marketplaces, retail.
• Software & developer tools — apps, SaaS, APIs, dev platforms, open source.
• Education & courses — schools, bootcamps, online learning, tutoring.
• Creative work & digital goods — art, music, games, fonts, templates, downloads.
• Local businesses — restaurants, shops, trades, clinics, services in your area.
• Non-profits & charities — fundraising, awareness, volunteer drives, mutual aid.
• B2B & enterprise — agencies, consultancies, business software, hardware.
• Media & publishing — books, magazines, newsletters, podcasts, films, journalism.
• Events & experiences — conferences, concerts, classes, travel, hospitality.
• Health & wellness — fitness, nutrition, mental-health services, licensed practitioners (claims must be substantiated).
• Finance & fintech — banking, budgeting, insurance, legitimate investing tools (no get-rich-quick, no unregistered securities).
• Hobbies & lifestyle — crafts, gardening, food & drink, fashion, home, outdoors.
• Adult / 18+ — accepted, but age-gated. See below.

Don't see your category? It's probably fine — if it's legal, honest, and safe, send it our way. We'd rather review a real ad than turn away a good one. Questions? ads@argand.org.

Adult / 18+ Ads

Yes — adult advertisers are welcome on Argand. Legal 18+ products and services are a legitimate business, and we don't pretend otherwise. We accept them like any other category, subject to the same honesty and safety review.

What makes adult ads different is who sees them. They are strictly age-gated and never shown by surprise:

• Never shown in Cozy Mode. Cozy Mode is Argand's safe-search, and it's on by default for everyone. While Cozy Mode is on, no adult ad can appear — full stop.
• Only for viewers who passed the 18+ gate. To turn Cozy Mode off, a viewer must complete the age-verification quiz. Adult ads serve only to people who have both turned Cozy Mode off and passed that gate.
• No profiling involved. The gate is a yes/no eligibility signal — it doesn't track who you are, only whether adult content is permitted for this session.

In short: adult advertisers reach a consenting, verified-adult audience, and nobody browsing in the default safe mode ever stumbles onto an 18+ ad.

What We Refuse

We refuse what's genuinely harmful or deceptive — not legal categories we happen to dislike. The line is simple: an ad must be honest, safe, and not designed to trick or harm anyone.

• Scams & fraud — deceptive offers, false promises, fake giveaways, "you won" hooks, get-rich-quick.
• Malware & phishing — malicious code, drive-by downloads, credential theft, fake login pages.
• Disguised or fake-system ads — anything dressed up as editorial content, search results, a virus warning, or a browser/OS notification.
• Political microtargeting — voter suppression, manipulation, and identity-based political targeting.
• Illegal goods & services — anything illegal where the ad serves, plus weapons, illicit drugs, and counterfeit goods.
• Dark patterns — the manipulative tricks listed in Patterns We Refuse below.

If a campaign isn't trying to deceive or harm anyone, it's almost certainly something we accept — see What We Accept.

Patterns We Refuse

These are well-documented industry dark patterns — the deceptive tricks most ad networks rely on. Argand refuses every one of them. Here's the list, in plain language, so you can hold us to it.

• No disguised ads. Ads are always clearly labeled "Sponsored" — never dressed up to look like editorial content or organic search results.
• No fake or deceptive close buttons. The dismiss control really hides the ad. It never opens the advertiser, navigates away, or triggers the click it pretends to cancel.
• No confirmshaming. Declining or hiding an ad uses neutral wording — never a guilt-trip "No thanks, I don't want to save money."
• No fake urgency or countdown timers. No "ends in 00:59", no manufactured deadlines pressuring you to click.
• No fake scarcity. No "only 1 left!" or invented stock limits to rush a decision.
• No fake social proof. No fabricated "247 people are viewing this" or invented reviews and counts.
• No autoplay with sound. Video ads are muted by default and respect your reduced-motion setting.
• No full-screen interstitials or pop-ups. Ads never take over the page or block what you came to do.
• No infinite-scroll ad injection. We don't sprinkle ads endlessly between content to inflate impressions.
• No ads styled as system notifications. Nothing impersonates your browser, OS, or a security alert.
• No bait-and-switch. The destination must match the ad — the creative and URL are frozen at approval, and any change auto-suspends the campaign.
• No gambling, loot-box, gacha, "spin-to-win", variable-reward, or fake "you won!" mechanics. No manipulative chance-based hooks of any kind.
• No psychological manipulation. No design that exploits cognitive biases to push a click you would not otherwise make.

See the live numbers behind these commitments in our transparency report.

Security Checks

We run these checks on every campaign before payment is captured:

1. HTTPS required
2. Valid TLS certificate
3. Domain age minimum 7 days
4. Blocklist check (URLhaus, PhishTank, OISD, 22+ feeds)
5. Redirect chain (max 3 hops, each hop checked)
6. Typosquatting check against top brands
7. No URL shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl, etc.)
8. Landing-page fingerprint stored at approval time
9. Media malware scan (ClamAV + magic-bytes whitelist, no SVG ever)
10. Text content scan (scam/phishing pattern detection)

Post-approval: daily re-checks while the campaign runs. Any URL or content change auto-suspends the campaign.

Review Timeline

• 3 business days guaranteed for campaign review.
• If we miss the window: authorization cancelled, nothing charged, priority re-review.
• Once approved: the campaign runs exactly as submitted — no changes.

Blocklist Appeal

If your domain was incorrectly flagged, email ads@argand.org with:

• Your domain
• The blocklist that flagged it (shown in the rejection message)
• Evidence of legitimate use

We manually verify appeals and work with blocklist maintainers for removal.

Transparency

We publish the numbers behind everything on this page: total impressions, advertisers, clicks, revenue, how many ads we rejected and why, and proof of our zero-tracking audit.

Read the Transparency Report →

Contact

Questions or appeals? Email ads@argand.org. We aim to respond within 24 hours.