This policy describes the governance process which Smadex adopts to ensure brand safety for all customers including taking all reasonable endeavours to minimise the risk of ad misplacement on mobile devices.
Smadex has implemented both manual processes using whitelists and blacklists and automated processes using content verification providers such as Integral Ad Science (IAS) and MOAT.
Smadex also works with supply-side partners to minimise and block inappropriate advertising inventory.
Smadex’s Brand Safety Policy is applicable to both managed and self-service customers.

2. Brand safety principles

Smadex will work to minimise the risk of ad misplacement on all campaigns and adhere to the brand safety specifications agreed with customers in each insertion order.
In addition to basic brand safety checks, Smadex may respond to news coverage that may impact a brand by excluding additional content using whitelists and blacklists. This will be determined on a case by case basis in collaboration with the advertiser.

3. Global blacklist

Smadex maintains its own extensive global blacklist of hundreds of thousands of mobile websites and applications, that have been flagged as containing inappropriate content. The global blacklist is updated on a regular basis based on human processes and using automated technology from third parties to minimise the risk of ads appearing against:

• Adult content including but not limited to Nudity, Pornography, or Any Explicit Sexual Conduct
• Sexual Assault/Child Abuse Content
• Graphic Violence/Death
• Promotion of Drugs or Illegal Criminal Activity
• Copyright Infringement
• Extremist content/hate speech
• Terrorism
• Illegal downloads/online piracy
• Offensive language/obscenity
• Spam or harmful sites
• Arms/weapons
• Military conflict
• Tobacco

4. Client whitelists

Smadex offers advertisers the option to curate bespoke whitelists depending on the campaign’s targeting criteria to address brand safety concerns and minimise ad misplacement. Whitelists can used by lines, campaigns or applied at an agency level to all activity.

5. Supply-side platform management

Smadex works very closely with its supply-side partners in order to optimise supply based on demand profiles, minimise brand safety issues and block unwanted advertising inventory.
Smadex implements the following processes with supply-side platforms:

• PMPs created on the supply-side platform
• Blacklists implemented at the supply-side platform end
• Specific publishers blocked at the supply-side platform end

6. Managed service

All trading is managed by the Smadex Ad Operations Team and inventory is traded programmatically via Open Market Place or Private Market Place.
For Open Market Place trading, campaigns will utilise Smadex’s global blacklist as standard good practice, in addition to any further whitelists, in which case Smadex applies always ads.txt, and/or blacklists provided by the advertiser and specified in the insertion order.
Smadex can also apply IAS prebid, or IAS/MOAT postbid brand safety segments. For PMP trading, campaigns will utilise ads.txt as standard good practice.
For in-app inventory, Smadex may apply prebid IAS segments or postbid IAS/MOAT segments to ensure delivery is brand safe.

7. Self-service

The Smadex Operations team will train self-service customers on the tools and processes available in order to implement and maintain brand safety good practices.

8. Third party content verification tools

Smadex offers advertisers IAS prebidding and IAS and MOAT postbidding solutions for both managed and self-service customers. These technologies, alongside internal human auditing and sourcing information from various other third parties, contribute to continually minimising the risk of campaigns appearing alongside inappropriate content.
Smadex can support the implementation of other third party verification technologies used by customers.
Smadex supports Doubleverify tags for blocking purposes.

9. Process and Maintenance

Smadex provides advertisers with total programmatic inventory transparency and real-time information. Advertisers can validate where ads are being displayed at any time.
Smadex internally vets publishers to ensure that ads do not appear against content that is not brand safe. At a high level, our domain vetting process for campaign briefs includes the following steps:

a) For custom whitelists created to meet the requirements of specific campaign briefs, individual domains are manually vetted by the Smadex Ad Operations Team before being added to a whitelist. Only domains with appropriate content, as defined above, are allowed on to the list.
b) Once new domains are added to whitelists these are monitored against Brand Safety metrics (e.g. human traffic and viewable) as part of our weekly Inventory Management routines. Where IAS/MOAT monitoring is enabled, Smadex will analyse fraudulent activity, brand safety scores and viewability along with other campaign performance metrics that Smadex requires to meet KPIs. Domains that do not meet these standards will be removed from campaign lists.
c) The Smadex global blacklist is updated on a regular basis by the Smadex Operations team using human processes, internal algorithms, IAS, MOAT and other third party sources. This is implemented at a platform level and automatically applies to all campaigns managed by Smadex.

10. Takedown Policy

In the event that a customer deems their ad has been displayed against inappropriate content, Smadex will take action to remove the publisher(s) as soon as notice has been received from the advertiser via email, and/or pause the campaign until the issue has been resolved.
Smadex operates a takedown policy to remove delivery across such content within 2 hours of communication during working hours and next working day during working hours 08:00 to 18:00 Central European Time.
Smadex will endeavour to fully investigate the ad violation and take any necessary steps to remove the risk of this happening again.
The Smadex operations team will manually audit publishers utilizing brand safety tools and data across our exchange partners. If they are found to be unsuitable they will be excluded.
Smadex self-service advertisers will be able to log into the platform and add publisher(s) to a blacklist and pause the campaign if required. Self-service customers may contact Smadex to investigate the matter further.
Where advertiser has agreed the Smadex IO or MSA: The contractual consequences of not taking down an ad in accordance with the Smadex take down policy to be agreed between Smadex and advertiser on a case by case basis.

11. Anti-Fraud policy

Smadex takes the following steps to minimise the risk of ad-fraud:
Our Operations team use content verification tools like IAS or MOAT to monitor suspicious activity by domain. All publishers with suspicious activity above a threshold are removed from campaigns. By working with prevetted inventory and trusted inventory sellers only, Smadex lowers the risk for ad fraud.
Smadex supports ads.txt to protect brands against ads appearing on fraudulent mobile websites and will look to adopt app-ads.txt in the future.

Finally, Smadex is integrated with Udger in order to detect fraudulent IPs.