SEPTEMBER 2015
Company: AOL (UK) Limited (“AOL”)
Shropshire House
11-20 Capper Street
London WC1E 6JA http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/
Business/Brands verified: AOL Advertising. Specifically the UK Operations of Advertising.Com and
AOP (AdLearn Open Platform)
Service provided:
Month of verification:
Advertising Network and Demand Side Platform
September 2014
Good Practice Principles
1 The Buyers and Sellers of digital display advertising shall ensure that the transaction is one pursuant to either (a) a Primary Agreement or (b) the specific terms and policies within an agreed or signed contract.
2 A Primary Agreement, or the specific terms and policies within an agreed or signed contract, should include the
Buyers and Sellers’ intention as to where the advertising should (or should not) appear.
The Buyers and Sellers should select from one or both of the following means to minimise ad misplacement:
A. Independently-certified (to
JICWEBS standards) Content
Verification (CV) tool (criteria
Description of compliance with the Principles
AOL receives Insertion Orders (IOs) from Buyers which are physically signed or authorised online. All IOs refer to the AOL Advertising Standard Terms and Conditions (Ts and Cs) located at: http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/aol-advertising-standard-terms-andconditions/ The IO and these Ts and Cs in conjunction constitute the agreement for display advertising transactions.
Where AOL has direct Publisher Agreements, they follow the format of the authorised online IOs with the Terms and Conditions linked to them: http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/aol-advertising-publisher-terms-andconditions/
The AOL Advertising Standard Ts and Cs contain a link to the AOL Brand
Safety Policy http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/brand-safety-policy/ which states that the principle means of minimising ad-misplacement is via the use of Appropriate/Inappropriate Schedules. (Further details are given in the description of compliance with GPP4).

SEPTEMBER 2015
Good Practice Principles Description of compliance with the Principles agreed between the Buyer and
Seller pre-delivery); or
B. Appropriate / Inappropriate
Schedules (criteria agreed between the Buyer and Seller predelivery).
3 Sellers should confirm that reasonable endeavours will be applied to minimise the risk of ad misplacement, irrespective of whether inventory is sourced directly or indirectly.
The AOL Brand Safety Policy http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/brandsafety-policy/ states “ AOL will make reasonable endeavours to minimise the risk of ad misplacement on its Premium Content and
Performance Networks.”
4 Sellers should be able to explain the process(es) that form the basis of these reasonable endeavours.
5 Both Buyers and Sellers should understand any contractual consequences should they fail to monitor this process and respond appropriately to ad misplacement via take down.
URLs are vetted by a combination of checks performed by Integral Ad
Sciences tools and also manual assessment of content and suitability by the
Publisher Services team. Only approved URLs are loaded on to AOL ad servers.
Direct Publisher agreements clearly state the content that is prohibited in
Section 1 of the AOL Advertising Publisher Terms and Conditions - Link http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/aol-advertising-publisher-terms-andconditions/
Specific Appropriate schedules are used on different ad exchanges and these are updated on a regular basis.
Ads are only served to Ad calls from approved URLs, which have also passed an additional check that they do not contain any words which are on the AOL proprietary inappropriate word list. Ad calls from nonapproved URLs or ones which fail the inappropriate word test are served a default sunset ad.
AOL monitors the websites in the AOL Network on an ongoing basis, using
Integral Ad Sciences technology to regularly screen the websites in our
Network. They also adhere to individual Appropriate/Inappropriate schedules supplied by agencies or advertisers on specific campaigns.
The Take Down Policy is described in the Brand Safety Policy statement – http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/brand-safety-policy/
The contractual consequences of not taking down an ad in accordance with the Takedown Policy are described in Clause 23 of the AOL Standard Terms and Conditions (a link to this is included in the Brand Safety Policy statement http://www.advertising.aol.co.uk/aol-advertising-standardterms-and-conditions/ ). This clause describes how Make Goods or Refunds may be offered if AOL fails to adhere to the Brand Safety policy.
www.jicwebs.org

SEPTEMBER 2015
Company:
Statement of verification provider:
ABC Ltd
Saxon House,
211 High Street,
Berkhamsted,
Hertfordshire.
HP4 1AD
We have reviewed AOL’s (UK Operations) policies and procedures for minimising ad misplacement in accordance with the JICWEBS DTSG Good Practice Principles. (This review did not include Adap.tv, which has a separate registration with JICWEBS). Our enquiries were designed to independently confirm that the brand safety policies stated have been implemented and clearly documented where required. Our review did not extend to testing the effectiveness of any processes, procedures or controls for ad misplacement.
In our opinion, at the time of our review, AOL’s (UK Operations) had established policies to minimise ad misplacement as described in the JICWEBS DTSG Good Practice
Principles.
JICWEBS (The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards in the UK and Ireland) was created by the UK and Ireland media industry to ensure independent development of standards for measuring performance online and benchmarking best practice for online ad trading.
The Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) is an UK industry body made up of representatives from across the digital display advertising ecosystem, including the buy- and sell-side. The DTSG is comprised of representatives from advertisers, agencies, agency trading desks, demand side platforms, advertising exchanges, sales houses, advertising networks, supply side platforms and publishers.
www.jicwebs.org