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Trust

Editorial standards

Last updated: 2026-05-07. Independence, sourcing, AI-assistance disclosure, and the rules for the ad index. Modelled on the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics, the Trust Project indicators, and the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI / CEN Workshop Agreement 17493).

1. Mission and audience

mediabuyer.site is written for working performance-media operators — affiliate marketers, native-ad buyers, search-arbitrage operators, and the vendors who serve them. Our editorial mission is to make this industry legible: to publish specifics, primary sources, and honest analysis instead of recycled press releases.

2. Editorial independence

Editorial decisions are made independently of advertising and affiliate revenue. Specifically:

  • No advertiser, affiliate partner, or sponsor sees coverage in advance of publication.
  • No advertiser has the right to remove negative coverage or change ratings on comparison pages.
  • We do not accept paid backlinks, "guest posts" with embedded commercial links, or paid mention placements.
  • We do not run sponsored content disguised as editorial. Where something is paid for (advertising units, an ad placement on a comparison page), it is visually distinct and labelled.

3. Sourcing and verification

  • Where possible we link directly to primary sources — official policy pages, terms of service, court filings, regulator statements, company press releases, and earnings calls.
  • For industry claims (volumes, market share, take rates) we require at least one independent secondary source, or we mark the figure as "estimated" and explain the methodology.
  • We name sources where we can. Anonymous sources are used only where the source faces credible retaliation, and only after the information is verified through a second route.
  • Quotes are accurate and not edited for meaning. Lightly edited quotes ("[edited for length]") are flagged inline.

4. The ad index — how data is collected

The ad index is a research dataset of native ad creatives served publicly on third-party publisher properties. We collect data as follows:

  • Public visibility only. We index creatives that were rendered publicly on third-party news, weather, and content sites — the same surfaces a regular reader would see. We do not log into private dashboards or platforms to acquire data.
  • No personal data of end users. We do not collect cookies, fingerprints, or identifiers of the readers who saw the ad. The unit of observation is the creative, not the user.
  • Anonymisation of click-stream surfaces. Tracking parameters that identify individual sessions or campaigns are removed from URLs before storage.
  • Robots and rate limits. Our collection respects robots.txt directives and applies conservative rate limits to avoid burdening publisher infrastructure.
  • Legal basis. The collection relies on the limitations and exceptions for text and data mining for research and criticism (EU DSM Directive 2019/790 Arts. 3–5, transposed in Spain by Real Decreto-ley 24/2021), and on quotation and parody under Spanish IP law (Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, Art. 32).

5. Take-down and advertiser opt-out

Advertisers and rights-holders who want a specific creative or set of creatives removed should follow the procedure on the DMCA / takedown page. We acknowledge notices within 24 hours.

6. Use of artificial intelligence

We use AI tools (large language models) for first drafts of structured pages — comparison frameworks, glossary entries, and hub pages — and for translation. The rules are:

  • A human edits everything before publication. No page goes live without human review by the operator.
  • Facts are verified against primary sources during human review. AI-generated claims that cannot be sourced are removed.
  • Disclosure. Pages that were heavily AI-drafted carry an inline label. Pages where AI was used only for structural assistance are not separately labelled.
  • No AI-generated images of real people, brands, or products. Stock and editorial photography only.

7. Affiliate links and commercial relationships

Some links on the site are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission when a reader clicks through and signs up or buys. Affiliate links are disclosed inline and do not affect editorial coverage. Where the operator has a personal commercial relationship with a vendor under review (running paid campaigns, owning equity, sitting on an advisory board), that relationship is disclosed at the top of the article.

8. Acceptable use of the site

  • Reading, sharing, and quoting under the right of citation are welcome.
  • Bulk download, scraping, or automated access to the ad index without a paid plan is not permitted. See the Terms of service.
  • Honor robots.txt and rate limits.

9. Corrections, updates, and unpublishing

We correct errors quickly and visibly. Material corrections are logged on the public corrections page with the original wording, the corrected wording, and the date. Minor typo-level corrections are fixed in place without a log entry.

We unpublish content only in narrow circumstances: legal requirement, factual error so severe that correction is insufficient, or — at a subject’s reasoned request — to comply with the right to erasure under Article 17 GDPR. Where we unpublish, the original URL returns a 410 with a brief explanation.

10. Right of reply

Subjects of critical coverage are offered the chance to comment before publication where time permits. After publication, they can submit a reply for inline inclusion at corrections@luba.media.

11. Conflicts of interest

mediabuyer staff personally run paid campaigns on several of the networks covered on this site. Each comparison or review page involving a vendor the team is actively buying from carries an inline disclosure. The team does not write reviews of competitors of vendors it is paid by, without disclosure.

12. What we will not publish

  • Sponsored content presented as editorial.
  • "Top 10" lists ranked by who paid for placement.
  • Press-release rewrites with no original reporting.
  • AI-generated SEO mush.
  • Content involving real people’s private lives without a clear public-interest justification.

13. Contact for editorial concerns