XNL Direct Sponsor Banner Information

On our websites and/or platforms we (might) show advertisements or banners, either via our own Direct Sponsor Banners or through the Google AdSense Program. You are currently viewing the page which is solely with regard to our own XNL Direct Sponsor Banner Program and how we are using/showing these to you.

Q: But Ad’s/Banners are so freaking annoying! why??
A: Well due to placing these banners on our pages we are able to continue making all the content, projects, 3D Models make blog posts and more of the alike. Plus that these aren’t ‘just random advertisements’. These are banners from (other fellow) Patreon members whom actually actively help support the platform 🙂

Q: But ad’s/banners are creepy, they violate my privacy with (tracking) cookies, know which sites I’ve visitied…..
A: Let me stop you there 🙂 Our “XNL Direct Sponsor Banners” do not do anything like that at all. We do not use (and neither do we allow these sponsors to place) tracking cookies on our website(s) in any way. We will not share any personal information about our visitors or signed in users with these sponsor or anything like that.

Q: Ow.. but what do you guys share with these direct sponsors then?
A: Well basically nothing about the users themselves. The only information we could share with them if they request this is the visitors count of the website or certain pages/category’s. But this will literally just be a single number. We will not share information about names, genders, age, education, address etc (we don’t even have or want most of this information from you). Neither will we share information like your email address, IP Address or anything of the alike with these direct sponsors. So these are truly privacy safe advertisements 🙂

Q: So they won’t and/or can’t know ANYTHING about me when I visit their page? 😀
A: Well yes, they will know a few things about you when you do visit their page/click on their advertisement. But the key here is ‘When you visit their page”. Because when you visit their (or any webpage for that matter) the website you are visiting will be able to see several things about you like (but not limited to): Your IP Address, what browser (user agent) and what operating system you’re using for example.

BUT… this is NOT information we are sharing with them (at all), this is basically just “how the internet works”, a bit more information about this can be found when for example googling “What Can a Website I Visit Tell About Me?”

The only thing our sponsor might be able to see if you click on their banner is that you landed on their website via/through clicking on the banner on our website. This is often called a ‘referral link‘. However we don’t use it for ‘affiliate bonuses’ or ‘extra payouts’, we might receive some discount from our sponsor depending on how many visitors they’ve received due to our link, but that’s about it. Often when sponsors want to use such a link, it is for their own statistics to know/see if it’s (still) beneficial to them to keep showing the ad/banner at that location (and thus paying for it).

If however an XNL Direct Sponsor Banner uses a referral-link, we will also show this above the advertisement.

Q: Some of the XNL Direct Sponsor Banner say: (Uses referral Link!). While others don’t. Why is this?
A: Well this is just us being 100% transparent to our visitors and/or members. This just means that the website you will visit when clicking on the banner has a referral link which means they will be able to see that you landed on their page by clicking on one of their banners on our website.

Do note that often web-servers already have tools/logging build-in which gives them the ‘capabilities’ to see from where visitors came to their page. We just wanted to be a bit more transparent. Even when a sponsor requested us to use an URL with a referral set to it, we will still only use a general referral link. This for example means that if a sponsor requests us to put &reff=XNLFt at the end of their link, then it will be fine and we will do so.

HOWEVER! If the &reff=XNLFt&XNLUser=[YourUsername] , and thus also asking to ‘send along’ usernames (or ANY other kind of user data), then we will refuse to accept this sponsor for banners! We will only accept ONE referral ‘key/identifier’ in their link and that’s it. Only a referral id which can tell them that the visitor got to their page via the clicked advertisement will be accepted by us and nothing else.

WARNING: If you visit any other linked partner, sponsor, website or anything else, always make sure to check their privacy policy and such before doing any business or sharing your personal data with said websites.

Q: Will you guys just allow/show any type of banner for the XNL Direct Sponsor Banner Program?
A: Nope, we will be very selective on which banners and which type of banners we will allow! The rules for direct sponsor banners are actually quite strict. You can read more about that on our “Advertising Page” actually 🙂 (Note: This is quite a long and elaborate page!)

Q: I don’t get it, I have an ad-blocker installed, it doesn’t show the Google AdSense ads but does still show the XNL Direct Sponsor Banners!? How come?
A: Well that’s very simple to explain actually. Because these banners are placed manually by us, and the images for these banners are also hosted locally on our own servers, due to this these banners are actually considered to be part of our website content. And thus will (most) ad-blockers by default not recognize them as Advertisements and thus not block them either.

Q: How do I get rid of these XNL Direct Sponsor Banners!?
A: Well If you’re a Tier 3 patron, you can actually disable them in your account 🙂 However we politely would like to ask you not to disable them just to support us, and to show a bit of respect to the sponsors which make it possible for us to keep running this platform 🙂 But if you would still like to disable them, then this is all up to you of course 🙂

Q: Well I have disabled all advertisements/banners (including the sponsor banners!), but still get some banners from XNL Future Technologies on certain pages! WHY?
A: Our own direct (and local) ‘advertisements/banners’ can’t be disabled. This is because these are intended to notify our users, platform members and visitors of new products, new models, new releases and more of the alike. Those will only be linking to our own pages directly, of which mostly on this domain. There might be some ‘XNL Banners’ in the future which for example might be used to notify you of new platforms we’ve started publishing on etc.

Q: The fact that the sponsor has an XNL Direct Sponsor Banner on your website, does this also automatically mean that you ‘fully endorse’ them, their product or that you guys share their opinion(s)?
A: No, this does not automatically imply any of these at all. Obviously we try to only list banners and products which we actually do ‘stand behind’, but this does not in anyway mean that we will blindly follow said sponsor. Nor does it imply (or mean) that we only like their product/offer or that we even use their brand, product or service. Again: We tend to only show products, services and brands in which we also have confidence in using or buying, but there might also be a sponsor, brand or product which would not fit our personal liking or preference for example. But when we do decide to place such an banners anyway, then this is most likely because we suspect it might actually be useful for our visitors or users.

Some extra notes (but important) notes on XNL Direct Sponsor Banners.
We do try to ‘screen’ every banner, and will try to do so for both the banner which is placed on our website, AND the website/URL the sponsor is linking to. We do our best effort in making sure that the banners are legit, fair, not some kind of ‘scam’, and that they are not misleading etc.

HOWEVER if it turns out that one of the sponsors is not doing as advertised in/on their banner, that the banner itself turns out to be misleading, that the sponsor has (without us knowing it) changed the ‘landing page’ (where you end up after clicking on the banner) to something ‘fishy’ or completely unrelated. Or that the sponsor itself turns out to be violating our Community Guidelines by discriminating or any other violation, then please do not hesitate to contact us and file an official complaint against the Sponsor and/or their banner.

We will then get in contact with you, and request further evidence (if required/needed) to take action. This can for example be an email with photo’s, a screenshot etc. When the sponsor indeed turns out to be in violation we will take action against this as soon as possible. We will for example:
– Try to contact the sponsor directly about this.
– Initiate an investigation against this sponsor and it’s offer(s).
– If claims are valid we will immediately terminate the banner(s) of said sponsor.

Do note that we are not a law firm, we can’t and won’t give any legal advice for disputes like warranty issues or contract breach on behalf of the offers/claims a sponsor made. Neither are we responsible for the offers, warranty, statements made or behavior of said sponsor(s).

We will however take action by (at least) removing the sponsor from our platform(s) if they are in severe violation of our set terms.

Legal disclaimer: This informational article will in no way ‘override’ our privacy policy, our Terms and Conditions, our Community Guidelines, our Refund and Returns Policy or any other document of legal information on our website(s). The information and policy’s in those legal documents will always supersede (and thus overrule) possible conflicting sections of this article.