Surrey Heath Website Advertising Policy

This policy forms part of our agreement with our advertising agents, Logo_Net Opens in a new window. Surrey Heath Borough Council retains the discretion to block any individual advertisement.

1. General approach
Surrey Heath Borough Council is looking to maximise revenue from advertising and wherever possible, will permit advertising.

The council does not take a 'white listing' approach (which is when specific permitted advertising is defined), but rather follows a 'black listing' approach (which is when the basic assumption is that advertising is permitted unless it falls into a number of prohibited categories, as defined below).

2. Prohibited products, services and advertisers
The basic approach taken by the council is to maximise the number of advertisements and advertisers which are permitted and encouraged to advertise on the Surrey Heath web site and minimise the number that are prevented from doing so by any policy controls or restrictions.

Although there are some specific categories of products and services which may not be promoted on the Surrey Heath web site, as defined below, most products and services may be promoted.

Private sector competitors with services provided by Surrey Heath Borough Council or other public sector organisations may advertise on the website. Such competitors could include health club operators or theatre and event companies advertising on the leisure/sports pages or other organisation providing business services. This policy toward competitor advertising will be reviewed on a quarterly basis or as required.

Political organisations may not advertise on the web site.

• Gambling organisations are not considered appropriate.
• Organisations simply offering entry into a competition following completion of a form containing any personal information will not be allowed to advertise.
• Advertisements where benefit is precluded from UK citizens.

In addition to the categories listed immediately below, there may also be some specific controls and policies associated with individual placements.

3. Specific categories of organisations, products or services which may not advertise or be advertised on the Surrey Heath Borough Council website are:

Types of organisations

• Political organisations
• Manufacturers of tobacco products
• Manufacturers of alcohol products
• Surrey Heath Borough Council wishes to ensure that there can be no questions as to content suitability. Advertising from any organisation associated with 'adult industries' will not be permitted.

Named organisations

• None specified

Types or products and services

• Tobacco,
• Alcohol
• Gambling
• Pornography
• Adult content
• Surrey Heath Borough Council wishes to ensure there can be no questions as to content suitability. Any content or advertising which has an overtly sexual 'tone' will also be excluded.

Named products and services

• None specified

4. Style and content of advertising
Surrey Heath Borough Council wishes to take an equally open approach to styles of advertising.

Advertisers must recognise public sector organisations cannot permit advertising which is sexual in nature, which features partial or complete nudity or which appears to promote or give undue publicity to illegal or even just inappropriate behaviour or lifestyles.

Humour in advertising is also to be approached with caution since much humour can often mock specific groups of citizens or poke fun at particular types of behaviour or situations.

Even if kindly and affectionately done, mockery would not be acceptable on a website of a public sector organisation.

Deciding whether or not the style or content of an advertisement makes it inappropriate for display is clearly a question of judgement and balance. Surrey Heath Borough Council prefers to take a cautious approach in respect of style and content.

The Council does not wish to take an unnecessarily strict approach and will allow 'innocent humour', providing there is no innuendo or subtext which might cause offence.

5. Behavioural targeting, cookies and privacy
Surrey Heath does not make use of cookies or any other devices which collect, store and analyse user behaviour on the Surrey Heath web site or on any other web sites to tailor advertising on the Surrey Heath web site, even if such data could not be linked to an individual.

Cookies are only be used to gather data on a totally anonymous basis in order to monitor web site traffic (as with Google Analytics and other, cookie based traffic monitoring tools).

There are a range of technologies in use on the internet which enables user behaviour to be tracked, in detail. Surrey Heath does not make use of these technologies but other organisations will do. The use of these technologies is very rarely malicious or harmful - their purpose is purely to tailor marketing and advertising - but internet users should be aware that most of their behaviour on the internet is now tracked. We strongly advise all internet users to check their 'privacy' settings.