SDK Bidding Program Guidelines

Your use of this product is governed by the agreement relating to SDK Bidding Terms entered into by you and Google (the "SDK Bidding Terms").

The SDK Bidding service (the "Service") enables you to access multiple sources of online display advertising inventory. In the Service, publishers and publisher networks are considered "Sellers," ad networks and other eligible entities are considered "Buyers," and unique instances of a Web browser or mobile application are considered "Users."

To participate in the Service, you must adhere, and ensure that any third party on behalf of whom you buy advertising inventory or to whom you provide access to the Service under your account also adheres, to the following policies: (i) the Platforms program policies, and (ii) the Service-specific policies stated below on this page. Please note that any restatements of the Platforms program policies in these SDK Bidding Program Guidelines are for clarification purposes only and do not limit the application of the Platforms program policies.

1. Real-time Bidder Policy

   The Real-time Bidder is a feature that allows you to receive impression calls in near real time and provides a bid in response based on your own data and information. Google may in its sole discretion modify the scope, duration, frequency and access to such information at any time without liability to you.

   Google reserves the right to audit your use of the Real-time Bidder feature and investigate any related activity in order to ensure your compliance with these policies and the SDK Bidding Terms. The audits shall be at Google's expense and will be conducted no more than once during each 12 month period, during normal business hours and without unreasonably interfering with your normal business operations. If you do not permit an audit, then you may not continue to use the Real-time Bidder feature.

2. Data Restrictions

   1. Restrictions on Your Use of Bid Data. You may use data received from the Service solely for the purpose of buying through the Service and, where permitted, may store such data in a secure (i.e., encrypted) manner. The anonymity of the cookie or mobile device advertising identifier must be respected, and you are prohibited from otherwise identifying the user.

      Data received from the Service may not be used for ads personalization where the user or the publisher (through such means as the bid request, for example) has declined, opted out of, or otherwise indicated a desire to avoid personalized treatment. For the avoidance of doubt, “personalization” includes determining or influencing ad selection based on a user’s past behavior.

      For clarity, your use of any Personal Information received from the Service is subject to the Data Protection section below.

   2. RTB Callout Data Restriction. You may store the encrypted cookie ID and mobile device advertising identifier for the purpose of evaluating impressions and bids based on user-data previously obtained by you. You may retain all other callout data except for Location Data (as defined below) after responding to an ad call for the sole purpose of forecasting the availability of inventory on in the Service. You are permitted to retain callout data only for the length of time necessary to fulfill the relevant purposes stated above, and in any event, for no longer than 18 months.

      Unless you win a given impression, you must not: (i) use callout data for that impression to create user lists or profile users; (ii) associate callout data for that impression with third party data; or (iii) share rate card data in any form, including but not limited to aggregate form, with third parties.

   3. Location Data Restriction. If you receive information through the Service that identifies or can be used to infer an end user’s precise geographic location, such as GPS, wifi, or cell tower data ("Location Data"), then you are permitted to use such information solely for the purpose of bidding on the applicable impression and you are permitted to retain such information solely for the length of time necessary to fulfill that purpose.

   4. Secure Signals feature. All use of the Secure Signals feature must meet the following requirements:

      • When the feature is used to pass data through Google’s systems to a publisher’s selected bidder, the publisher must ensure that the signal collection complies with all current laws and privacy requirements.

      • Secure signals passed through Google's systems must be obfuscated such that the signals are meaningless to Google, and can only be interpreted by the buyer selected by the publisher.

      Data passed using the feature is exempted from the Invalid Activity provision under the Platforms program policies and the Identifying users provision of the Google Publisher Policies to the same extent as HTTP cookies or user resettable mobile device identifiers designed for use in advertising.

   5. Third-party Ad Technology Vendors. Your ads may only make calls to Certified External Vendors ("Certified Vendors"). Sellers may choose which Certified Vendors are allowed for their end users in the European Economic Area, the UK, and Switzerland (“EEA+ Users”). If the RTB callout specifies which Certified Vendors are allowed for an impression that serves to an EEA+ User, your ads for such impression may only call such allowed vendors. If you receive an RTB callout with an IAB TCF v2.0 TC string, you are required to pass this TC string onwards to any vendor that could use it to determine the user preferences for processing their data.

3. User Consent

   You must obtain legally valid user consent as required by the EU user consent policy.

4. Interest-Based Advertising

   In addition to the interest-based advertising policies in the Platforms program policies, you must also comply with the following policies:

   1. Privacy Policy. Your posted privacy policy, and the posted privacy policy of each advertiser on whose behalf you use the Service to buy advertising inventory, must include information about Google, any Google advertising cookies, or mobile device advertising identifiers associated with a User ("User Cookie"), and an appropriate description of your or such advertiser’s use of any remarketing in online advertising. The remarketing description must be included in the privacy policies of all sites that include the remarketing tag or otherwise gather information for remarketing.

   2. In-Ads Notice and Ads Modification. To clarify, you are responsible for ensuring that all of your online behavioral ads (i.e., advertisements that use or collect data for online behavioral advertising purposes including without limitation when you target advertising inventory using a remarketing list of User Cookies ("User List") provided by a Seller or otherwise obtained by you) contain notices in accordance with advertising industry guidelines and self-regulatory principles, and/or any applicable laws, rules, or regulations. You are also responsible for ensuring that your advertisers’ online behavioral ads comply with the requirements set out in the previous sentence. Google reserves the right (i) to insert such notices within ads in the event that you or your advertisers have failed to do so and (ii) to insert into ads icons with controls that enable Users to manage their online advertising experience, such as the "Mute This Ad" feature. You may not modify or obscure such notices or controls.

   3. Advertising Cookies Policy. Your use of the User Cookie via a User List is also subject to the Google Advertising Cookies Policy.

   4. User List Transparency. You grant to Google the right, should Google elect to do so, to display to any User that is part of your User Lists or those of one or more of your advertisers (i) that the User is on at least one of your User Lists or those of your advertisers, and (ii) your domain or display name or that of your advertisers.

5. Data Use

   Google uses a cookie or mobile advertising identifier to serve ads to sites participating in the Service as described on the Google Advertising Privacy FAQ. Google may use and disclose any data derived from your use of the Service, subject to the terms of Google's privacy policy, the SDK Bidding Terms, and any applicable laws. If you bid on a Seller’s advertising inventory, Google may disclose to that Seller your bidding history for such inventory.

6. Data Protection

   If you access, use, or process personal information made available by Google that directly or indirectly identifies an individual and that originated in the European Economic Area (“Personal Information”), then you will:

   • comply with all privacy, data security, and data protection laws, directives, regulations, and rules in any applicable jurisdiction;
   • use or access Personal Information only for purposes consistent with the consent obtained by the individual to whom the Personal Information relates;
   • implement appropriate organizational and technical measures to protect the Personal Information against loss, misuse, and unauthorized or unlawful access, disclosure, alteration and destruction; and
   • provide the same level of protection for that personal data as is required under any applicable Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs). Please refer to this site for more information on Google’s reliance on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and the ICO’s UK addendum to the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs).

   You will regularly monitor your compliance with this obligation and immediately notify Google in writing if you can no longer meet (or if there is a significant risk that you can no longer meet) this obligation, and in such cases you will either cease processing Personal Information or immediately take other reasonable and appropriate steps to remedy the failure to provide an adequate level of protection.

7. Click-Through URLs in the Open Auction

   You must ensure that the landing page URLs in bid responses are correctly declared. Where you or one of your advertisers associates a dynamic ad with multiple customized landing pages, it is sufficient for you or such advertiser to declare the URL(s) of the root site(s).

8. Creative Renderability

   Creatives passed to Google for rendering should accurately reflect how users will experience the ad, regardless of submission mechanism. For HTML5 ads, the code used should be similar to that used when the creative is rendered in a Webview, and may only be modified to render in a web browser (i.e. removing or stubbing calls to APIs not available in a web browser environment). VAST and native ads should be passed through as-is with no changes.

   Where assets are hosted on a server controlled by an SDK buyer, they should remain renderable for 72 hours from the time of the last bid submitted using that creative, or since the last impression served with the given creative.

   Creatives which do not comply may be disabled, and accounts with a substantial rate of violating creatives may be suspended. Accounts will not be suspended without prior warning.

9. Eligible Transactions in SDK Bidding

   You must assume principal risk in all purchase transactions you make through the SDK Bidding Program. All transactions you make through the SDK Bidding Program must (i) be made only for mobile app online display advertising inventory, a requirement that excludes, e.g., webview inventory, for which ads are rendered by an in-app web browser; (ii) use a buyer-owned software development kit (“SDK”) to render the creatives sold as part of the Service which, for the avoidance of doubt, must be proprietary to and specifically designed for the Buyer’s mobile app online display advertising business; and (iii) for the purpose of participation in SDK Bidding Program.

   You are not permitted to use the SDK Bidding Program to buy on behalf of or otherwise provide RTB callouts to single advertisers. For clarity, only the transactions eligible under the Service will be subject to these terms; if your business (or any of its affiliates) operates an entity that is eligible to buy through the Authorized Buyers or Open Bidding products, those transactions will be subject to the relevant products’ terms.

10. Syndication Policy

    Buyers may purchase inventory that is either 1) for use directly by an advertiser (or direct agent of an advertiser) with which they have a direct relationship; or 2) for resale, distribution or subsyndication to your Buyers within your own auction. You must ensure that your Buyers do not resell, distribute or otherwise sub-syndicate inventory to another indirect sales channel (e.g., another ad network, DSP, or trading desk) for any purpose, including but not limited to reselling that inventory.

    Buyers must not use the SDK Bidding program for buying inventory for which they directly or indirectly pay or receive a share of revenues to or from an entity that would otherwise prevent the inventory from being monetized.

11. Bidding

    You acknowledge and agree that Google may adjust Buyer(s)' bid(s) for ads that are served on inventory available on any exchanges that are participating in the SDK Bidding Program to maximize publisher revenue by adjusting for differences in how different ad types translate from auction wins to impressions in such exchanges.