Ads on Freegle's website

External advertising on the Freegle website brings in some of the income that is needed to keep Freegle running.

Since August 2024, Freegle is once again using Google ads.

Paying to opt out of ads

Above the page footer ad is a line saying:

Hate ads? Us too. Donate, and we'll turn them off for a month. Learn more

This link invites users to make a financial donation to Freegle, after which they should see no ads for a month. Also, if total donations in one day reach a stated daily target, then ads will be turned off for everyone for that day.

Ad filtering

Google publishes its advertising policies, but does not actively vet ads, relying instead on reports from users.

The Geeks and selected volunteers have access to Freegle's Google Adsense account.

From there, inappropriate ads can be blocked. This should be used minimally so as not to reduce income unnecessarily. An example of an unacceptable scam ad is one with a large button along the lines of "click here to activate your account".

At the top right of any Google ad is an X button. From here, any internet user can send limited feedback to Google AdSense: "Seen this ad multiple times", "Not interested in this ad", "Ad covered content", or "Ad was inappropriate". These reports seem to have no immediate impact.

To the left of the X button is a triangle pointing to the right. Clicking on this opens a Google page with certain information including the advertiser name.

Freegle's ad review team can log in to https://www.google.com/adsense, then from the menu at the left side choose Brand safety > Content > Ad review centre.

In the "Filter or search" bar, enter the advertiser. This will bring up all current ads from that advertiser. There is supposed to be a preview of each ad, but images may be missing.

For each ad, click on 🚫 to block the ad. If this is done on all the advertiser's current ads (there may be dozens), the ads wil immediately cease to appear on the Freegle website. Clicking the three dots next to that symbol also allows the user to report the ad for breach of Google's policies, if appropriate.