Advertising Policy

Last updated: March 2026

Where advertising appears

Display advertising appears on the Free tier only. Paid subscribers (Pro, Power, Corporate) see no advertising. This is not a dark pattern — it is the intended model. Free access is funded by display advertising. Paying removes it.

What kind of advertising

Factiator uses Google AdSense for display advertising. Ads are selected automatically by Google based on page content and, with your consent, your browsing behaviour. We do not sell advertising space directly. We do not accept sponsored content, native advertising, or branded analysis of any kind.

No advertiser can pay to have their claims analysed favourably. No advertiser can pay to suppress an analysis. This is structurally enforced — the ad network has zero access to analysis inputs or outputs at runtime.

The structural firewall

The advertising system and the analysis engine are technically isolated. Google AdSense does not receive the claims you submit. It does not receive the verdicts the engine produces. Advertiser identity is never available to the analysis pipeline at the time an analysis runs.

This is architecture, not policy. We cannot selectively apply different analytical standards to an advertiser's claims even if we wanted to — the systems do not communicate.

Consent and cookies

Personalised advertising requires your consent under GDPR. When you first visit Factiator, a cookie consent banner gives you the choice to accept personalised ads, accept essential cookies only, or customise your preferences. If you decline advertising cookies, Google AdSense will still display ads but they will not be personalised.

You can change your preferences at any time via the cookie settings link in the footer.

Why we use advertising at all

Factiator is an independent product with no government funding, no foundation funding, and no corporate sponsors. Revenue must come from somewhere. The free tier serves users who cannot or will not pay — journalists in countries with limited budgets, students, citizens fact-checking what they read. Advertising makes free access sustainable without compromising the analysis.

The alternative — no free tier — would restrict the tool to paying users and undermine the public interest mission. We consider display advertising on a free tier a reasonable tradeoff, provided the structural firewall between advertising and analysis is maintained. This policy is our public commitment to that firewall.

VALINORSK LLC | factiator.com | Last updated: March 2026