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City Politics Terms of Use

Last modified: October 23, 2026

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are an agreement between you and City Politics INC ("City Politics INC," "we," "us" or "our"), which operates citypolitics.org (the "Marketplace"), where advertisers buy direct ad placements on the City Politics network of sites (Chicago Politics, NYC Politics, Austin Politics, Boston Politics, Seattle Politics, Denver Politics, Philadelphia Politics and Pennsylvania Politics; the "Network"). City Politics INC operates the Marketplace and sells the ads; the Network's sites themselves are operated by Matics Lab INC, which shows the ads City Politics INC sells on them. These Terms include our advertising terms. Please read them carefully.

1. Accepting these Terms

By signing in to the Marketplace, submitting a campaign or paying for one, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is part of them. If you buy for a business, campaign or other organization, you agree for it and confirm you may do so, and "you" includes it. You must be at least 18. If you do not agree, do not use the Marketplace.

2. Buying a campaign

  • What you buy. A campaign is a set of sites, a placement (site-wide, in-article, data pages, the election guide or the meetings list), a format (a leaderboard set, a 300x250 medium rectangle or a native card), optional targeting (page types, wards or districts, specific articles), dates, and optionally an A/B test of two creatives.
  • Ways to buy. You buy a campaign in one of these ways, with prices set out on the Marketplace for each site and placement:

- Impressions over dates (CPM). A price per 1,000 viewable impressions, with a weekly minimum. Your quote is the larger of the CPM price for the estimated impressions and the weekly minimum, for each site. - Impression block. A fixed number of viewable impressions at the CPM, less a discount for larger blocks, split across your sites by their measured traffic. The end date is when we expect the block to be delivered, with some room. - Cost per click (CPC). You prepay a total budget and set a bid per click (at least the floor shown for your sites) and a daily budget. Each valid click is charged your bid, and we stop showing the ad once the budget is spent. A valid click is a click on an ad we served, the first click on that ad, made at least a second after the ad appeared, and not from a known bot, automated or otherwise invalid traffic, or a reader we rate-limited. We decide which clicks are valid using our own counts, which are final for billing. The last click may be charged less than your bid so spend never exceeds the budget. - Sponsorship. One slot (a site, placement and format) for a number of weeks or calendar months at a flat rate. While it runs, no other direct ad is shown in that slot on your sites; other ads, ours or an ad network's, may still appear in other slots on the same page. A sponsorship takes the whole placement, without targeting. One sponsor holds a slot at a time; an unpaid order holds it for 24 hours. Impressions shown for a sponsorship are estimates only.

  • Discounts and add-ons. The network bundle discount applies when you buy every site in the Network (15%; not on CPC budgets), and the A/B add-on when you choose it (20% of the total, at least $25). The quote shown when you submit the campaign is the price you pay. We may change prices for future campaigns at any time; a change does not affect a campaign already submitted.
  • Payment. You pay in full before the campaign runs, by card through Stripe Checkout, which you start yourself, or by invoice when we offer it. A CPC budget is paid in advance like any other campaign. Prices are in U.S. dollars and do not include taxes, which you pay where they apply. A campaign that is not paid by its start date may be moved or canceled.

3. Review, approval and rejection

Every campaign is reviewed by our staff before it runs, and runs only once it is approved and paid. We may approve or reject any campaign, or ask you to change it, at our discretion, including for reasons not listed in these Terms. If we reject a campaign you paid for, we refund it in full. Approval means only that we agreed to run the ad; it is not a statement that the ad is lawful, accurate or compliant.

4. Content rules

Ads are always labeled "Advertisement" on our sites. Your ads, and the pages they link to, must not:

  • make false, misleading or deceptive claims, or hide who the advertiser is;
  • impersonate any person, organization, official or government, or our sites or staff, or look like our own content or navigation;
  • contain or link to malware, phishing, or pages that redirect readers somewhere other than the page you gave us, or that try to collect information under false pretenses;
  • be sexually explicit, hateful, harassing or violent, or promote illegal products or services;
  • infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights.

Direct ads are images and text only: a banner image, or a native card's image, headline and text, and a link. We do not accept or run advertisers' scripts, tags, tracking pixels or other third-party code, and the link must be a plain https address. We serve the ad ourselves and count it ourselves.

5. Political ads

A political ad is one for or against a candidate, a political committee or PAC, a ballot measure, or an issue of public policy ("issue advocacy"). We accept political ads from any party, candidate or position under the same rules and prices, and links to donation pages on platforms such as ActBlue and WinRed are allowed. If your ad is political, you must say so when you build the campaign, give the "Paid for by" line that we will show on the ad, and give the name and address of the person or organization paying for it, which we keep for our records and may disclose where the law requires.

You are responsible for your political ads' compliance with the law. Federal law (the Federal Election Campaign Act and the Federal Election Commission's rules) and state law, including Illinois' Election Code, can require disclaimers on political communications, including online ads, identifying who paid for them and whether a candidate authorized them, and can require reporting of the spending. We show the "Paid for by" line you give us, as you give it, and we do not review it for legal sufficiency. Nothing on the Marketplace is legal advice, and we do not promise that any ad complies with any law. Ask your own counsel.

Political ads (candidates, PACs, ballot measures, issue advocacy) are sold at the same rates. Each one must show a "Paid for by" line, and we keep the payer's name and address with the campaign's records.

6. Delivery and estimates

Impressions, clicks and other figures on the Marketplace are estimates from our own measurements of recent traffic, not guarantees. We pace delivery evenly over your dates (an impression block as fast as traffic allows within its dates; a CPC campaign by its daily budget), show your ad only where it fits the slot (size, site, page type and targeting), and count an impression when at least half of the ad is on screen for at least one second. Location targeting (states, cities, ZIP codes) uses the approximate location derived from each reader's IP address, which can be wrong near the edges of an area, so an ad may reach some readers outside the area and miss some inside it. Ads are not shown on some pages (for example the homepage, About, Contact, Privacy, Terms, sign-in, and our founder's letter), and readers' ad blockers may stop them. We may serve other ads (ours or an ad network's) in the same slots when your campaign is not eligible.

7. Refunds, make-goods and cancellations

  • Undelivered impressions. If a campaign delivers fewer viewable impressions than the quote estimated, we will, at our choice, extend it to make up the difference (a make-good) or refund the undelivered share of what you paid, pro-rated by impressions. Where a site's weekly minimum applied because we could not yet estimate its traffic, the minimum is the price of that site's placement and is not refunded for lower delivery.
  • CPC budgets. Budget not spent on valid clicks when a CPC campaign ends (or is ended early) is, at your choice, credited to a future campaign or refunded. Our staff make every refund and credit; nothing is refunded automatically.
  • Sponsorships. A sponsorship is priced for the slot, not for impressions, so lower traffic is not refunded. If we fail to show it in its slot for a full day of its period (other than because of a reader's ad blocker or the pages that never carry ads), we will extend it by a day or refund that day's share.
  • Cancellations. You may cancel a campaign before it is approved for a full refund of anything you paid. After it is approved, you may pause it or ask us to end it early, and we will refund the undelivered share, pro-rated as above.
  • Our removal. If we pause or remove an ad for breaking these Terms, we may keep what was paid for impressions already delivered, and refund the rest at our discretion.
  • Refunds go back to the original payment method or as we agree with you.

8. Our right to pause or remove ads

We may pause, stop or remove any ad or campaign at any time, without notice where needed, if we believe it breaks these Terms or the law, harms our readers or sites, or if a site, page or slot changes or is removed. Where reasonable, we will tell you why.

9. Your content and the license you give us

You keep ownership of your ads ("your content"). You give City Politics INC a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, resize, format, display and distribute your content on the Network and the Marketplace, to show it in previews and reports, and to keep it in our records, for as long as needed to run your campaigns and keep those records. You promise that you own or have the right to license your content, that it and the pages it links to follow these Terms and the law, and that its claims are true and substantiated.

10. Accounts

Keep access to your email account secure: anyone who can read it can sign in as you. You are responsible for what happens through your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it.

11. Disclaimers

THE MARKETPLACE, THE NETWORK AND ALL ESTIMATES AND REPORTS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, CITY POLITICS INC DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT PROMISE ANY NUMBER OF IMPRESSIONS, CLICKS, RESULTS OR AVAILABILITY, EXCEPT THE REFUNDS AND MAKE-GOODS IN SECTION 7.

12. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, CITY POLITICS INC AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL OR OPPORTUNITY, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE MARKETPLACE, YOUR CAMPAIGNS OR THESE TERMS, EVEN IF WE WERE TOLD THEY WERE POSSIBLE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE MARKETPLACE, YOUR CAMPAIGNS OR THESE TERMS IS LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE CAMPAIGN THE CLAIM RELATES TO (OR, IF NONE, ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100)). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW SOME OF THESE LIMITS; IN THAT CASE OUR LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS.

13. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless City Politics INC and its officers, directors, employees and contractors from any claims, losses, liabilities, fines and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your content, the pages it links to, your campaigns (including any claim that a political ad lacked a required disclaimer or was not reported as the law requires), your breach of these Terms, or your violation of the law or anyone's rights.

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Marketplace at any time. We may suspend or end your access, or refuse future campaigns, if you break these Terms, if the law requires it, or to protect the Network or other people. Sections that by their nature should survive (including 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16) survive the end of these Terms.

15. Disputes and governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware and of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to try to resolve the dispute informally by writing to us through the contact form or email hello@chicagopolitics.org and giving us 60 days to work it out with you. If we cannot resolve it, any claim must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction, except that either of us may bring a claim in small-claims court where it qualifies, and either of us may ask any court for an injunction to protect intellectual property. To the extent the law allows, you and we each waive any right to a jury trial, and claims may be brought only individually, not as part of a class or representative action.

16. General

These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any written insertion order or invoice terms we agree with you are the whole agreement between you and City Politics INC about the Marketplace; a signed insertion order controls if it conflicts with these Terms. If any part of them is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our failure to enforce a part is not a waiver. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our written consent; we may transfer ours in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. There are no third-party beneficiaries. Notices to you may be given on the Marketplace or by email to the address on your account; notices to us go through the contact details below.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms. We will post the new version on this page and update the "Last modified" date, and for a material change we will give notice on the Marketplace or by email before it takes effect. A change does not apply to a campaign already submitted, unless you agree.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms or your campaigns: use the contact form or email hello@chicagopolitics.org. The operator of City Politics is City Politics INC.