Advertising Disclosure

FormatOS uses Google AdSense to show advertising. Ads can appear on some pages, in spaces kept apart from the tools. Every tool is still free to use, and there are no sponsored slots and no paid promotional content in the tools, guides, or tool descriptions.

This disclosure was published before any advertising ran on the site, so the rules that govern ads here were public first. The commitments below apply to every ad shown on FormatOS, and this page is updated whenever the advertising on the site changes.

FormatOS is a free service. There are no accounts, subscriptions, or paywalls, and we intend to keep the tools free. Running the website still has real costs, hosting, development, maintenance, and ongoing improvement of the tools.

Advertising is how FormatOS covers those costs while the tools stay free. It is not a reason to change how the tools work, and the commitments described in the rest of this disclosure apply to every ad shown on the site.

Advertising on FormatOS is kept completely separate from the tools themselves. Specifically:

• Ads do not influence how any tool behaves or how it processes your files
• Ads do not influence the results a tool produces; output quality is never tied to advertising
• Ads do not influence which tools appear on the site, how they are ranked, or how they are described
• No advertiser can pay to change a tool's behavior, alter its output, or gain preferential placement within the tools
• Advertising systems are separate from the file processing that happens in your browser

The tools exist to be useful. Advertising, if it appears, exists only to fund them. Those two things do not mix.

If an advertisement appears on FormatOS, it does not mean FormatOS endorses, recommends, or vouches for the advertised product, service, company, or claim. Advertisements are typically selected and served by third-party advertising systems, not chosen individually by us.

Advertisers are responsible for the content of their own ads and for the products and services they offer. Any transaction or interaction you have with an advertiser is between you and that advertiser, under the advertiser's own terms and policies. Please use the same judgment with ads on FormatOS that you would use with advertising anywhere else on the web.

Ad placement follows strict rules designed to keep the tools usable and to prevent accidental clicks:

• Ads will not be placed inside file upload or drop areas
• Ads will not be placed next to file action buttons such as convert, process, or download controls
• Ads will not be styled to look like tool controls, buttons, progress indicators, or download links
• Ads will be visually distinct from tool interfaces so it is always clear what is an ad and what is part of the tool
• Layouts will be designed so that ads do not shift content in ways that cause accidental clicks

Ads on FormatOS are served by Google AdSense. Where permitted by applicable law and your settings, Google and its partners may use cookies, pixels, device identifiers, or similar technologies to serve ads based on your visits to this and other websites, and to measure ads, limit how often you see the same one, and improve them. You can turn off personalized ads in Google's Ads Settings.

Advertising partners operate under their own terms and privacy policies, and FormatOS does not control every technology used by third-party advertising systems. For details on how these technologies work and the controls available to you, including browser settings, device settings, and opt-out tools: see the Cookie Policy and the Privacy Policy.

Whether or not advertising is ever shown, file processing on FormatOS stays exactly as described in the File Handling Policy. For the active tools on this site, files are processed in your browser; on this site, your files are not uploaded to our servers, and we do not intentionally store uploaded files.

Introducing advertising would not change this model. Advertising systems measure ad delivery and interaction; they are separate from the file processing that happens on your device. Your files are not shared with or sold to advertisers, and advertising does not give any third party access to the files you work with in the tools.

If advertising is shown and you encounter an ad that seems misleading, inappropriate, disruptive, or placed in a way that violates the rules on this page, please tell us. Reports help us identify problems with third-party ad delivery that we might not otherwise see.

You can report an ad problem through the Contact page. Where possible, include the page you were on, what the ad showed or linked to, and roughly when you saw it. We review reports and take action where we can, including blocking problematic ad categories or adjusting placements where the advertising system supports it.

FormatOS may update this Advertising Disclosure from time to time, for example, if advertising is introduced, if advertising partners change, or if applicable rules and laws change. When changes are made, the "Last updated" date at the top of this page will be revised.

If the site's advertising status changes in a meaningful way (such as ads being shown for the first time), this page will be updated to describe what is actually happening, not just what might happen. We encourage you to review this page periodically alongside the other legal pages published on FormatOS.