Effective Date: February 22, 2026
ATDb is a community-maintained knowledge graph of the advertising technology industry. These guidelines help keep ATDb accurate, neutral, and useful for everyone. By contributing, you agree to follow these guidelines and our Terms of Service.
What ATDb Is (and Is Not)
ATDb is a curated reference database of AdTech companies, people, events, and industry news. It is not a review site, a job board, an advertising platform, or a place for personal opinions. All content should serve someone trying to understand the AdTech landscape.
Editorial Standards
All contributions should be factual, neutral, and verifiable. Write in the third person. When possible, include a source URL to support your edit.
Good Contributions
- Factual corrections — fixing a wrong headquarters, outdated employee count, or incorrect founding year
- Missing information — adding a website URL, LinkedIn profile, stock symbol, or business description
- Improved descriptions — making a summary more accurate or a business model description clearer
- Source-backed claims — citing a press release, SEC filing, or news article to support a data point
What Gets Rejected
- Promotional language — “best-in-class,” “industry-leading,” “unmatched” or other marketing copy
- Unverifiable claims — revenue figures, user counts, or other data without a cited source
- Competitive sabotage — removing competitors, inserting negative characterizations, or downgrading a company's tier without justification
- Personal opinions — “this company is overrated” or subjective assessments
- Duplicate submissions — resubmitting the same edit after rejection without addressing the reason
Conflict of Interest
If you work for, represent, or have a financial interest in a company listed on ATDb, you may still contribute — but you must follow these rules:
- Use the conflict of interest checkbox when editing a company you're affiliated with, and optionally describe your relationship
- Stick to verifiable facts (e.g., correct address, updated leadership)
- Do not add promotional language or remove competitor information
- Do not edit your company's tier classification
Undisclosed conflicts of interest that result in biased edits may lead to rejection and, if repeated, account restrictions.
Behavioral Expectations
We assume good faith. Most rejected edits are honest mistakes, not malice. We ask that you:
- Be respectful in edit summaries and any communications
- Accept editorial decisions gracefully — you may resubmit with improvements
- Do not harass, impersonate, or deliberately mislead other users or moderators
- Do not create multiple accounts to circumvent restrictions
Prohibited Content
The following content will be removed immediately and may result in account suspension:
- Spam, advertising, or affiliate links
- Defamatory, libelous, or knowingly false information
- Personally identifiable information not already public (home addresses, personal phone numbers, private emails)
- Hate speech, threats, harassment, or obscene material
- Content that infringes copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights
- Malicious code, phishing links, or content intended to harm users or systems
Vandalism
Vandalism is any edit made in bad faith to damage the accuracy or integrity of ATDb. This includes blanking fields, inserting gibberish or offensive content, creating fake entity profiles, and systematically introducing false information. Vandalism is treated more seriously than low-quality edits and may result in an immediate ban.
Trust Levels
ATDb uses a trust system based on your contribution history. All new users start at Level 0 and advance automatically as they build a track record of quality edits.
- Level 0 — New User: All edits go through moderator review before publication.
- Level 1 — Contributor: Earned after consistent quality contributions. Edits still go through review.
- Level 2 — Trusted Editor: Earned after a sustained track record. Some edits may be auto-approved for non-protected fields.
- Level 3 — Moderator: Appointed by administrators. May be granted additional review privileges.
Trust levels can be frozen or revoked if a pattern of low-quality, biased, or malicious edits is detected.
Enforcement
We use graduated enforcement proportional to the severity and pattern of violations:
- Edit rejection — the edit is not applied, with a reason provided
- Warning — notification that continued low-quality edits may affect your trust level
- Trust freeze — your trust level is frozen (no further promotions) until quality improves
- Editing ban — your ability to submit edits is revoked
- Account suspension — for repeated abuse, spam, or vandalism
Honest mistakes are corrected, not punished. Enforcement actions target patterns of deliberate abuse, not occasional errors.
Feedback and Bug Reports
If you find a bug, have a feature idea, or want to suggest an improvement, use the Feedback page. Feature requests and bug reports are tracked publicly so other users can vote on and follow them.
Disputes and Appeals
If you disagree with an edit rejection or enforcement action, you may appeal by contacting us at admin@theatdb.com with a description of the issue. We will review appeals in good faith, but administrative decisions are final.
Changes to These Guidelines
We may update these guidelines as the community grows. Material changes will be reflected by updating the effective date at the top of this page.
Contact
Questions about these guidelines? Contact us at admin@theatdb.com.