Political and issue advertising:
MSNBC.com, like most Internet, television and print news publications, accepts political and interest group advertising. In the past month, we have received many letters objecting to the front-page ads from the John Kerry campaign. MSNBC.com offered ad space to the Bush campaign as well. MSNBC considers political and issue advertising a form of free speech which we would be restricting by not accepting it. The sale of advertising space is not intended to favor one party over another.
Political spots, like any other ad on MSNBC.com, must adhere to company standards for advertising. In addition, the cover ads are marked ‘advertisement’ to distinguish them from the content produced by MSNBC.com’s editorial team.
Story page ads:
The majority of the ads on MSNBC.com are automatically generated; occasionally the subject of the ad can create an unfortunate or distasteful juxtaposition with the story’s subject matter. When such conflicts have been brought to our attention, we have removed the ad from the page.
General advertising policy:
The policy guiding MSNBC.com’s sales staff is intended to adhere to Microsoft’s ‘Trustworthy Computing’ initiative. Specifically, MSNBC.com will not accept ads whose features may deceive users or mimic editorial content. (As an example, ads must have a different color than the surrounding content and may not resemble operating system messages.) It also bars pop-up and pop-under ads. The policy also adheres to MSN’s editorial policy, designed to represent user interests on the network.