How ads load on this site, and why
Advertising pays for the journalism; here is how the ad slots are built, what they are allowed to do and the limits we place on speed, privacy and placement.
This site carries display advertising, and readers who look at the page source will see the slots. This post explains how they work, what constraints we put on them and why we have made the choices we have. It is written for readers rather than engineers, but the details are accurate.
Where the slots are
Ad units appear in a fixed set of positions: a leaderboard at the top of desk and topic pages, a unit in the right-hand rail on article pages at wider screen sizes, and a single in-article unit placed after the third paragraph on stories longer than four hundred words. Home page featured slots, desk fronts and the first screen of every article are reserved for editorial.
Slots are reserved in the page layout before the ad loads, so that content does not jump when an ad arrives. A slot that receives no ad collapses quietly; it does not show a placeholder.
How they load
The page renders first. Ad scripts are requested after the main content is visible and are loaded asynchronously, so a slow ad server delays nothing a reader is trying to read. Units below the first screen are requested only when a reader scrolls near them. On mobile connections we cap the number of units per page and the file size of creative we will accept.
We measure the effect. Our internal budget is that advertising must add no more than a fixed fraction to page load time at the median and at the 95th percentile, and units that break the budget are removed until the vendor fixes them.
What ads may not do
Creative may not auto-play sound. It may not expand over content without a click. It may not use animation beyond a fixed duration. It may not mimic site navigation, editorial layout or system dialogs. It may not request permissions, such as location or notifications, from the reader. Vendors that serve creative breaching these rules are blocked at the ad server.
Privacy
Where a reader has not consented to personalised advertising, the slots serve contextual ads based on the page's topic and nothing else. Consent is requested once, can be withdrawn on any page and defaults to off in jurisdictions where the law requires it. We do not sell reader data to advertisers, and we do not permit advertisers to place their own tracking code on the page outside the ad frame.
Why we run ads at all
Subscriptions cover part of the cost of the newsroom, and we intend that share to grow. It does not yet cover all of it. Advertising fills the gap and allows most of the site to remain free to read, which matters for the readers who most need clear information about money and are least able to pay for it.
Reporting a problem
If an ad on this site breaks these rules, a link at the foot of every page reports it with the page URL and, where available, the creative identifier attached. Reports go to the engineering team and are reviewed within one working day.