Approving advertisers

In words: a business picks your board, fills in its spot and pays on Stripe's page, but its card is only held. The spot appears in your "Listings to review" with a date to approve by. If you approve it, the card is charged at that moment and the spot goes on your board and your screen. If you reject it, or the business cancels with the link we email it, or time runs out (the cycle ends or the hold lapses before you decide), the hold is released and nothing is charged.

You pick one for each board under "When does a paid listing go live?", in the board's settings:

• Straight away: the listing is on the board as soon as it is paid for.
• Straight away, and tell me to review it: the listing goes live immediately and also appears in "Listings to review", so you can look at it afterwards.
• Only after I approve it: the business's card is held, not charged, until you approve. Approving charges it and puts the listing on the board.

A board you create starts on "Only after I approve it". You can change the setting whenever you like.

In your dashboard, under "Listings to review". It lists everything on your boards with something outstanding: new spots held for approval, new businesses on a spot, a business's new name or message, and reports from the public. Each item shows the business's name, its website, the amount (marked "on hold" while the card is only held), its message and tags, and why it is in the list. The most urgent items come first.

We email the board's Owner and Admins about every payment and every card hold still waiting for you, with a link to "Listings to review" when the board reviews its listings. On a board saved on "Straight away" you can turn these emails off in the board's settings ("Email the Owner and Admins about every payment and card hold"); on the two settings that review listings they are always sent. While a board with approval on is published, still look at "Listings to review" at least once a day.

Each held spot shows "Approve by" with a date and time. A card hold lasts about seven days from the business's checkout, and a spot can only be approved while its cycle is still running, so the date is whichever comes first, with a few minutes to spare.

After that date the spot can no longer be approved, and nothing is charged; the business is told. On a board whose cycles are longer than a week, that means reviewing within the week.

The business's card is charged the amount it agreed to at checkout, the money goes to your Stripe balance, and the spot goes on your board at its total, ranked from that moment. The business is emailed that its listing is live. If the business also gave a name or a message, those show too.

The hold on the business's card is released and nothing is charged, so there is nothing to refund. The business is told it was not charged. Nobody can list that website on your board again until the next cycle.

If a spot's payment was already taken (on a board that does not hold cards, for example), rejecting is not available once it is live; you suspend or remove it instead, as below.

Yes. Until you approve, the business can cancel from the email we send it when the hold is placed, or from its listing's page. The spot leaves your queue, nothing is charged, and the website is open to a new purchase.

No. A listing is the business's own: you cannot change its website, business name, message, image or tags, and we do not edit them either (we store a fitted copy of the image). On a board with approval on, a business name or message given or changed after the spot went live is held for your approval before it shows, while the spot itself stays up. The tags a business picks from our lists need no approval of their own.

Your five actions are approve, reject, suspend, reinstate and remove.

• Suspend takes a live listing off the board and the screen. It can be undone.
• Reinstate puts a suspended listing back.
• Remove takes a listing off for good, and nobody can list that website on your board until the next cycle.

Removing a listing does not decide the money by itself. If the business broke our rules, its payment is not refunded. If you remove a listing that was already showing for a rule of your own (a competitor, a topic you would rather not carry), the business is refunded at your cost, in full or for the part of the cycle it did not get, never the card processing; a person on our staff issues that refund when you or the business write to us. The Host Terms set this out.

Yes, in one case. When a business pays for a website that is already on your board without money on it (one of your own featured entries, a carried row from the last cycle, or a spot that refunds took off the board), the payment is charged at once, the spot goes live straight away, and it appears in your queue so you can review the new business. You approved that website before; the business paying for it is new.

Add their websites under "Blocked websites" in the board editor: up to 200 per board. Blocking a website also blocks every address under it. A business that tries to buy a spot for a blocked website is told, before it pays, that this board's host does not accept sponsorship from this website. A listing already on the board stays until you remove it.

Only you, your team and we can see the list. Under "Refused in the last 30 days" you can see, for each blocked entry, the last website it refused, when, and how many times. Anyone can type any website, so a refusal is not proof that its owner tried.

Whatever our Prohibited Content Policy and Acceptable Use Policy refuse, on every board, whatever your own settings. Stripe's own list of restricted businesses binds your Stripe account too. A website with a term on our refused list is turned away before payment, and we check listed websites again at least once a day. The advertisers' version of these rules is Rules for ads.

Anyone can use "Report a listing" at the bottom of your board. A report is recorded and appears in your "Listings to review"; it never takes a listing down by itself. A person reviews it, and you can act on it with the five actions above.

Yes. We may approve, reject, suspend, reinstate or remove any listing on any board under our policies, and our decision stands over yours. We never write or edit a business's listing, and we never decide its rank.