Sponsorship and Advertising Guidelines

Sponsorship

• Sponsorship and advertising should not be construed as endorsement on the part of MIT.
• In order to preserve the university's reputation as an institution of independent scholarship and inquiry, we recommend the following guidelines with respect to displaying sponsorship on web pages:
  • Reference to a sponsor should appear at the bottom of the page.
  • It should be a text link or a graphic of postage stamp size.
  • Links should go to the company's homepage and not to a page directly featuring a product.
  • Proper accounting procedures with regard to recording sponsorship fees must be practiced.
• Any agreements for sponsorship must go through the appropriate Academic Council member or Department Head.

Advertising

• Third-party advertising or commercial promotion of non-MIT entities is not allowed on the MIT network or on MIT web sites. Advertising and commercial promotion raise questions of conflict-of-interest, neutrality, and freedom from influence. Additionally, such advertising is considered to be a visual distraction on web sites from MIT's mission of education and research.
• Current MIT Policies and Procedures (in particular those referring to conflict of interest and the use of MIT's name to imply an endorsement) indicate that no advertising should be allowed on any "MIT web pages". Most peer institutions do not allow any advertising on their "edu" domain. This recommendation applies not only to sites in the mit.edu domain but also to any site bearing the MIT name.
• These standards do not apply to Technology Review, the magazine web site that carries third-party online advertising. Advertising is an industry standard for commercial magazines, and Technology Review has its own federal Employer Identification Number (EIN).
• MIT organizations that wish to proceed with advertising on MIT web sites should contact the MIT home page team.

Affiliate Programs

• The above recommendations would not permit the use of affiliate programs such as Amazon.com, or the listing of a specific vendor on class syllabi, because that would imply an MIT endorsement and, in the case of the affiliate programs, would violate policy (13.2.3) against the use of MIT Resources for personal gain. It would be permissible to point students to various vendors.
• On an individual's homepage (in the mit.edu domain) the posting of affiliate links would be considered an advertisement.
• A link from a book title to a specific vendor (such as Amazon.com) would also violate the policy (Section 13.2.3) against the use of MIT Resources for personal gain.
• In summary: Links to affiliates programs are not allowed unless the revenue is deposited in an MIT account and the linked item is associated with intellectual activities (e.g., a book, article, or research paper).