{
  "schemaVersion": "1.0",
  "effectiveAt": "2026-08-31",
  "status": "published_before_monetization",
  "currentCommercialState": {
    "displayAdsInstalled": false,
    "paidSubscriptionsInstalled": false,
    "sponsoredResearchAccepted": false,
    "affiliateLinksInstalled": false
  },
  "principle": "Money may fund the work. It may not purchase a finding, ranking, topic outcome, citation, correction decision, or quieter disclosure.",
  "editorialFirewall": [
    "Advertisers and sponsors cannot select research conclusions, rankings, model inputs, thresholds, or publication decisions.",
    "Commercial partners cannot review unpublished research except to verify a clearly labeled factual description of their own product or service.",
    "No payment can buy a favorable mention, followed link, citation, ranking change, article edit, correction delay, or suppression of an adverse result.",
    "Research staff disclose material financial relationships next to affected work and recuse themselves when the conflict cannot be managed.",
    "Revenue performance is never an input to research prioritization or model output. Reader utility and the registered research calendar control the queue."
  ],
  "placementPolicy": {
    "maximumPlacementsPerPage": 2,
    "allowedSurfaces": [
      "One reserved block after the article introduction",
      "One reserved block after the article body or inside the site footer"
    ],
    "blockedSurfaces": [
      "Headlines, decks, bylines, research charts, data tables, citations, methodology steps, correction notices, and publication decisions",
      "Interstitials, pop-unders, autoplay audio or video, countdowns, sticky overlays, notification prompts, and disguised navigation",
      "Any placement that causes content movement after load or makes the research harder to read"
    ],
    "readerExperienceThresholds": {
      "cumulativeLayoutShiftMaximum": 0.1,
      "mobileQaRequired": true,
      "consentAndPrivacyReviewRequired": true
    }
  },
  "labeling": {
    "programmaticDisplay": "ADVERTISEMENT",
    "directSponsorship": "SPONSORED",
    "affiliateLink": "AFFILIATE LINK",
    "rules": [
      "Labels appear before the commercial content in text that remains visible on mobile.",
      "Commercial units may not imitate research cards, charts, alerts, buttons, or editorial typography.",
      "Sponsored material names the payer and describes the relationship on the page.",
      "Affiliate links disclose the compensation rule before the first compensated link."
    ]
  },
  "blockedCategories": [
    "Unlicensed gambling, illegal betting, or products that evade local age and location rules",
    "Sportsbooks, daily-fantasy operators, and paid fantasy ranking or projection products",
    "Political campaigns, issue advocacy, and election fundraising",
    "Tobacco, nicotine, weapons, adult content, and recreational drugs",
    "Payday lending, deceptive credit, get-rich-quick products, and speculative schemes presented as certain returns",
    "Unsubstantiated health, supplement, injury-recovery, or performance claims",
    "Malware, surveillance software, counterfeit goods, and misleading subscription offers"
  ],
  "dataAndPrivacy": [
    "Research inputs, subscriber records, and unpublished evidence are not shared with advertisers for targeting.",
    "Sensitive or cross-site behavioral targeting is not a condition of buying access to Fourth Down Labs inventory.",
    "Any future ad or analytics vendor must be named in the privacy disclosure before production use.",
    "The publication will prefer contextual placement and the smallest practical data footprint."
  ],
  "sponsoredWork": {
    "currentStatus": "not_accepted",
    "futureConditions": [
      "The research question and sponsor relationship are disclosed before the method.",
      "Fourth Down Labs retains analysis, publication, correction, and data-access control.",
      "The sponsor cannot veto an unfavorable result or require publication.",
      "The complete methods and limitations remain public even if an output is commercially funded."
    ]
  },
  "enforcement": [
    "Commercial conflicts and policy breaches enter the public correction ledger when they affect published work.",
    "A violating unit is removed without waiting for a campaign cycle to end.",
    "Material policy changes receive a new version and effective date; the repository preserves the diff.",
    "Advertising remains disabled until the independent reach and reader-experience gates also pass."
  ]
}