Brussels & New York City, April 25, 2018 — IAB Europe and IAB Technology Laboratory today released the market-ready technical specifications for the Transparency & Consent Framework (“Framework”) following a 30-day public consultation in March and April 2018.
The official release version of the standard reflects extensive feedback from publishers, agencies, and ad tech companies collected during the consultation period. As with all standards, it is expected that this standard will be iterated with new features and attributes in the future.
The Framework allows users to have full authority over their data.
The Framework is a cross-industry standard that supports online services and their partners in their efforts to provide transparency and choice mechanisms for their users. In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), users can now be made aware of not only online services’ use of their users’ personal data, but also use of that data by third parties that assist online services in showing advertisements to their users and measure the effectiveness of those advertisements. The Framework is particularly relevant for “first parties” (publishers) and other suppliers of online services, who partner with “third parties” (vendors) to enable those third parties to process user data on one of the legal bases laid down by the Regulation (including both legitimate interests and consent, where applicable).
The GDPR will be enforced as from 25 May 2018. Fines for non-compliance with the new regulation could run as high as 4% of companies’ annual global turnover.
IAB Europe and IAB Tech Lab call for immediate and cross-industry support for, involvement in, and adoption of the Framework.
CEO IAB Europe, Townsend Feehan said: “GDPR will mean European users get more information about, and control over, who is processing their data. This should give them increased confidence online – that is the challenge and opportunity that the complex new EU law presents. The Transparency & Consent Framework will sit at the intersection of users, publishers, and the third-party partners (vendors) that support the publishers in monetising their content, giving both users and publishers more control and transparency in the new environment.”
How does the Framework operate?
The technology is based on a JavaScript API and enables the surfacing of the selected third parties’ information, the storage of a user’s choices related to those third parties and the passing of information about approved third parties, so that parties in the online advertising ecosystem understand which parties have been approved by publishers and surfaced to and approved (or consented to, where necessary) by their users. A key piece of the Framework is a unique registry known as the Global Vendor List, which is a list of registered and approved third parties that a publisher may, in connection with the processing of personal data on its digital properties, choose to allow to access information on its users’ devices or process its users’ data for specified purposes. The Framework also facilitates management of signals by Consent Management Providers (CMP) across participating organisations that meet specific and required criteria.
Robert Whelan, Chief Operating Officer at Emerse, a registered vendor said: “Emerse DSP is now enrolled in the Transparency & Consent Framework, an excellent initiative for the digital advertising industry.”
Publishers can take advantage of the Framework in the following ways:
Major European Publishers including Axel Springer and Schibsted Media Group recently endorsed the Framework:
“We believe a standardized industry framework is necessary to not only meet transparency and user choice requirements, but also to maintain a high-quality user experience for our audiences,” said Moritz Holzgraefe, Chief Operating Officer Corporate Digital Platforms at Axel Springer. “Closed or fragmented solutions don’t enable publishers to choose which technology providers they work with and don’t allow advertisers to operate effectively, which is critical to our business and to our users.”
“It is important to us to have a solution that can evolve as other publishers, advertisers, and technology providers work with regulators and end users to iterate over time,” said Ingvild Naess, Group Privacy Officer, Schibsted. “IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework is designed to be fine-tuned as best practices become clearer in the coming months and years.”
“The Framework we’ve developed establishes a way to communicate user choices about the processing of their data for advertising and other purposes,” said Alice Lincoln, VP – Data Policy & Governance, MediaMath, who chaired the initial IAB Europe Working Group on Consent that led to the creation of the Framework. “In addition, the Framework provides technical measures for publishers that help ensure their audience data is secure. We believe these two accomplishments will help the ecosystem adopt a consumer-first mindset in which data processing practices are in alignment with users’ rightful expectations of both privacy and better advertising experiences.”
The updated technical specifications for the GDPR Transparency and Consent Framework can be found HERE.
The specifications include:
An additional draft specification being made available for public comment within the coming week in conjunction with the release includes:
This additional draft specification will provide more robust support for vendors operating on different legal bases, secondary audit trails, and more granular controls for publishers over approved purposes for each of their approved vendors.
“When GDPR is enforced across Europe, publishers and vendors need not only a solution for today, but one that can evolve based on guidance from the regulatory community, internet users and companies relying on the framework for a standardised, supporting standard,” said Dennis Buchheim, Senior Vice President and General Manager, IAB Tech Lab. “The team at the IAB Tech Lab has taken on technical governance of the Framework to ensure that it meets policy needs, works with other relevant standards (such as OpenRTB), and is flexible enough to continue to evolve and to support future data-privacy-related needs.”
With the GDPR enforcement date fast approaching, publishers and their advertising partners are strongly encouraged to implement the Framework immediately. For publishers that wish to enlist a third-party CMP, a regularly-updated list of fully operational CMPs is available HERE.
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About IAB Europe
IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.
About IAB Technology Laboratory
The IAB Technology Laboratory (“Tech Lab”) is a non-profit research and development consortium that produces and provides standards, software, and services to drive growth of an effective and sustainable global digital media ecosystem. Comprised of digital publishers and ad technology firms, as well as marketers, agencies, and other companies with interests in the interactive marketing arena, IAB Tech Lab aims to enable brand and media growth via a transparent, safe, effective supply chain, simpler and more consistent measurement, and better advertising experiences for consumers, with a focus on mobile and “TV”/digital video channel enablement. The IAB Tech Lab portfolio includes the DigiTrust real-time standardized identity service designed to improve the digital experience for consumers, publishers, advertisers, and third-party platforms. Board members include AppNexus, ExtremeReach, Google, GroupM, Hearst Digital Media, Integral Ad Science, Index Exchange, LinkedIn, MediaMath, Microsoft, Moat, Pandora, PubMatic, Quantcast, Telaria, The Trade Desk, and Yahoo! Japan. Established in 2014, the IAB Tech Lab is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco and representation in Seattle and London
IAB Europe Media Contact
Matthias Matthiesen
+32 4 96709294
IAB Tech Lab Media Contact
Laura Goldberg
+1.347.683.1859
We are very pleased to announce the release of the technical specifications for IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework. This exciting cross-industry initiative will be a critical tool in helping publishers, technology vendors, agencies and advertisers meet the transparency and user choice requirements of the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect on 25th May 2018.
The Framework will ensure that online services give consumers full visibility and control over who is allowed to process their data in connection with advertising, and for what purposes.
The official release version of this open-source standard reflects extensive feedback from publishers, advertisers, and other important stakeholders who all participated in the final working group review of the following technical specifications
To support the technical specifications, there is a series of implementation guides for publishers, buyers (DSPs and agencies), CMPs and DMPs:
The technical specifications of the Framework will be maintained by an IAB Tech Lab working group. We will be working continuously with them to update the technical specifications to accommodate any changes in policy as well as feedback from the market. We look forward to hearing from you at advertisingconsent.eu.
This release swiftly follows our recent announcement that the registration process is now open for both Vendors and Consent Management Providers (CMPs) to apply for approved status in the context of IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework. Since the announcement, we are seeing an increasing number of Vendors and CMPs registering and gaining approval. For more information about the Framework, including a link to the registration portal for vendors wishing to participate, visit advertisingconsent.eu.
On Friday 20th April, we had a very successful Webinar with a panel of CMPs demonstrating their consent solution to over 300 participants. You can watch a recording of it here. We will repeat this webinar on Friday 27 April at 8am PDT / 11am EDT / 4pm BST/ 5pm CEST. If you are interested please check advertisingconsent.eu for details or register here.
Held in Milan on 23-24 May, IAB Europe’s Annual 2-day conference Interact 2018 will feature contributions from all stakeholders with a say in the future of the digital ecosystem, from advertisers to publishers, to ad tech businesses, politicians and regulators. Together they’ll examine the forces disrupting digital, how businesses can adapt to thrive, and how we can reinvent the digital ecosystem to provide a firm foundation for business growth in the future.
Ahead of her keynote speech at Interact 2018, we had a nice chat with Amelia Torode, Futurologist & Founder of The Fawnbrake Collective. Read more:
Amelia Torode is one of the UK’s best known strategic planners. Campaign magazine describe her as a “trailblazer in the advertising industry, a brilliant strategic thinker and leader.” She was one of the first WPP Marketing Fellows in 1997 and subsequently worked at agencies such as Naked Communications, OgilvyInteractive New York, VCCP and at TBWALondon as their Chief Strategy Officer. Amelia recently launched The Fawnbrake Collective, designed to be a new operating system for Brand Strategy & Experience Design using independent and freelance talent who have chosen to opt out of large agency structures. Amelia is a TEDx Talk-er on Brands On The Brain, a Part Time Power List winner, “Planner of The Year”.
IAB Europe: You talk about optimising talent and creativity – how does The Fawnbrake Collective achieve this?
Amelia Torode: The Fawnbrake Collective is our attempt to redesign the agency model to become faster, flatter, more flexible and better suited to the needs of 21st century brands and clients. Our industry is at a pivotal moment. We’ve been battered by waves of technological and cultural change and quite frankly the big old agencies just aren’t fit for purpose, they’re slow 20th century oil tankers when the world needs collectives of agile flotillas.
Last year Sera and I met at an IPA Excellence Diploma judging day. My mother had just passed away from cancer, Sera was on the point of relocating her family down from Scotland and exiting Material, the agency that she founded. We had both reached the point where we wanted something different. We had both looked at the agency landscape and both realised that nothing set our pulses racing with excitement. We’d have these conversations which went along the lines of - if you were going to start something today that delivered true strategic counsel and creative solutions to clients, what would it look like? It was so obvious that the one thing that it would not look like would be a traditional advertising or media agency.
We started off thinking hard about talent. We firmly believe that the best talent today want to work with others, not for others. We see smart talent leaving agencies to try and find a different way. We saw smart people leaving London because the costs of living couldn’t be met by the entry-level wages of agencies. These were great people who wanted out of the industry but wanted to stay in the game and the current shape of agencies couldn’t accommodate them.
So if the starting point is that it’s all about talent, how can you create a flexible structure that allows for clients to get best in class thinking and ideas, with project and value based pricing free from traditional overheads or time based deliverables and create a community of independent and freelance talent.
This is how we describe ourselves: “Fawnbrake is a loose, horizontal Collective of like-minded people who have chosen to opt out of large corporate structures but who still want to feel like part of a crew, part of something. Fawnbrake is populated by grown-ups (regardless of age) in so much as we are all self-sufficient. We are not children, we’re not waiting for leads. We’re happy hunting alone (and good at it) but know that often it's more enjoyable in a pack. Fawnbrake is a virtual and physical group where we can help each other, learn from each other, engage with each other and become smarter in the process ourselves. We operate on a principle of Karma Not Kickbacks.”
IAB Europe: How have brands/advertisers reacted to the operating model of The Fawnbrake Collective?
Amelia Torode: The reaction has been hugely positive. The new landscape is going to be populated by new organisations of all shapes and sizes and operating models, everybody knows that. Fawnbrake isn’t anti-agency, in fact one of our projects was helping a client find a global advertising network to work with to deliver their first global advertising campaign in 20 markets. We are however anti-bad agencies, anti-lazy agencies and anti-bloated agencies. We think that in 3 years’ time, half the traditional media and creative agencies in London will have had to close. Supply and demand are out of sync.
No client has ever asked to see our HQ, or an org chart of layers of personnel. As Marc Pritchard put it: “It’s time to disrupt archaic ‘Mad Men’ model, eliminating silos between creatives, clients & consumers, and stripping away anything that doesn’t add to creative output - excess management, buildings & overhead”.
Even Sir Martin at AdWeek 2018 called for new companies that are "more responsive, less bureaucratic... more agile, less layered... more principled." That’s Fawnbrake in a nutshell.
IAB Europe: Part of your new way of working includes no internal email – what is your preferred replacement internal comms channel?
Amelia Torode: Email works just fine for one way communications - like a newsletter, an announcement or for an initial contact like an inbound approach or an outbound proposal. Where is doesn’t work well is for internal communications or project-based work. We were finding that in our old jobs we were constantly firefighting emails, jumping up and responding to emails and that got in the way of actually doing the work.
For all internal communications we use the messaging app, Slack - it helps us to it helps us mobilize communication, fuel discussion and bring in 20 or 30 voices at a time on a project in a structured, productive way - in a way that email never could, it also works for small project groups. With clients we often find that customised WhatsApp groups actually work better than email.
IAB Europe: Last year you wrote that you “shouldn’t need to bleed to succeed”. Do you think - with the revelations, movements and call to action to change the industry over the past year - that the impetus towards (or actual) work/life balance of traditional agency/networks, has in fact changed?
Amelia Torode: The issues are that the traditional agencies are just 20th-century structures that are failing to adapt fast enough. That structural deficiency means that profits are down, margins are lower and there’s a frenzied need for continual pitching and new business. That makes for a working environment that we don’t think works for anyone.
We need to redesign this industry’s work structures and organisations to better suit the needs of creative workers or we will find that they will simply vote with their feet and walk away.
Our assets are our people, we all know that, but too often our industry uses people like cannon fodder and burns out those with families or who have commitments outside the office. We’re facing a talent dearth of our own making. All too often, it seems that to succeed in our industry you still have to bleed for your agency. If you’re not prepared to do that, then someone else coming up the ranks will. Goldman Sachs-style hours become an (unpaid) expectation rather than a personal choice. Bedtimes (ours or those of our children) are missed, gym sessions are skipped and dinner dates canceled. So we comfort ourselves in the belief that our ideas are making "dents in the universe" and that they are well worth the sacrifice, there has to be another way.
IAB Europe: What keeps you awake at night?
Amelia Torode: Making sure that the commercial, and the "social" elements, of our business work together in a way that works best for all Fawnbrakers.
IAB Europe: What should businesses leaders in the global digital advertising industry be addressing, for people, working in their companies?
Amelia Torode: People often say in our industry that it’s all about “the work, the work, the work” which is right but never forget that it’s people who do the work. How do you think your people work best? How can you ensure that young people don’t leave disillusioned, and older people leave burnt out? It should be about “people, people, people”. Happy people are fulfilled people and more productive people. Business leaders have a moral duty of care for the people who work for them, we have to get rid of short-term thinking.
Join us at INTERACT 2018 in Milan on 23-24 May 2018!
Speakers from trailblazing companies in the field of blockchain as well as adopters of these solutions took part in a session designed to better familiarise you with the inner workings of this intricate technology and its current and future impact on digital advertising.
Watch the recording here.
Moderator:
Tim Geenen, CEO & founder, Faktor
Tim Geenen is the CEO & founder of Faktor, a decentralized Identity Management platform for publishers, brands and consumers. Previously he held leadership roles at Bannerconnect (GroupM) and Improve Digital, responsible for strategy, innovation and partnerships. He also co-founded, and was the chairman of, the first programmatic IAB taskforce in Europe. Currently he serves as board member for IAB Netherlands. Tim knows the digital media and technology business inside out, and is just as comfortable in the commercial, operational and technical aspects of the industry.
Outside of his high-level roles, Tim is an avid supporter of innovation and education. He loves to help and inspire others and speaks regularly at events and gatherings throughout Europe. He also committed to mentoring talent at Startupbootcamp, an accelerator program for global startups.
Speakers:
Alanna Gombert, Global Chief Revenue Officer, MetaX
As MetaX Global CRO, industry veteran Alanna Gombert oversees MetaX product creation, strategy, and go to market including the adChain and adToken dApps. Prior to MetaX, Alanna served as SVP, Technology & Ad Operations, IAB, and General Manager, IAB Tech Lab. There she was integral in the development of the industry response to ad blocking with LEAN, OpenRTB 3.0, and played a significant role in the creation of ads.txt, which provides power to publishers to publicly declare legitimate inventory sellers. She also broadened the Tech Lab’s global reach with rapid growth in Japan, China, and Europe. Before the IAB Tech Lab, Alanna was General Manager, Digital Supply Investment, at Accuen/Omnicom Media Group. Previously she was Head of Digital Sales and Strategy at Condé Nast and founder of CatalystDesk, Condé Nast’s digital media trading platform. Gombert joined Condé Nast in March 2013 from Google by way of Admeld, where she ran the trading desk, agency, and demand - side platform relationships and helped grow RTB from an idea into an industry mainstay. Her early career included stints with Right Media (acquired by Yahoo in 2007), Nielsen, DoubleClick, and in the finance world with JP Morgan Chase and Commerzbank.
James Prudhomme, Head of International, Index Exchange
With more than 15 years of leadership experience in the digital media industry, James is applying his expertise towards the growth and expansion of Index Exchange’s offices and operations across Europe and new global markets.
Prior to joining Index, he was the CEO of Datacratic, a machine-learning and AI software start up. James has previously served as a consultant to large media companies including Yellow Pages Group, Rogers Digital Media and The Globe and Mail, where he worked with senior executives to establish competitive strategies leveraging the opportunities emerging from a shift to real-time, data-driven advertising. James is a successful angel investor and serves as an advisor to several leading digital media and e-commerce start ups.
Adam Hopkinson, Co-Founder and COO, TRUTH
Adam has spent 22 years in digital media, starting off building websites in 1996, through to now serving as Chief Operating Officer for Truth.
The years in between were spent at Capital Radio group, creating radio advertising solutions for brands. Adam also served at Target Media Group for 13 years before moving to build the commercial team for IGN Entertainment where he stayed with the business through its acquisition by Ziff Davis. Adam left Ziff in Q2 2016 to run AnyClip, an international video advertising business bringing contextual relevance to video advertising.
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Team Establishes Two New Divisions, Opens Offices in Sydney and Dusseldorf, Promotes Variety of Senior Leaders
TORONTO, April 11, 2018 --- Index Exchange today announced the promotion of executive team members as a result of rapid expansion and projected growth for 2018. The changes come at a time of unprecedented growth for the company as it looks to further establish its position as the leading independent global advertising exchange. Alex Gardner, former Senior Vice President, Partner Development, and long-time leader at Index, is elevated to Chief Revenue Officer. Gardner will oversee the now combined sales and services divisions and remain responsible for Index’s corporate revenue targets. Will Doherty will move from Vice President, Business Development to Senior Vice President, Global Marketplace Development to oversee strategy and execution for agency, marketer, and demand side platforms globally.
“Index has experienced incredible momentum over the past year, and our new leadership structure strategically positions our team to meet and exceed the needs of publishers,” said Andrew Casale, President & CEO of Index Exchange. “Over 200 new employees will join us globally over the course of 2018, and these promotions will allow our team to provide greater global insight and the highest level of service. Alex and Will’s combined experience and breadth of knowledge will continue to positively impact our publisher and buyer partners along with the industry at large.”
In addition to the promotions of Gardner and Doherty, Index Exchange promoted James Prudhomme from Managing Director, EMEA, to Head of International where he’ll oversee successful scaling of Index operations outside of North America, including Index’s newest offices in Sydney and Dusseldorf. In this role, Prudhomme will expand his duties beyond Europe and support country managers and regional managing directors in Europe and APAC while sourcing and building channels of business in new markets.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with the entirety of Index’s executive team across borders over the past several years,” said Rich Caccappolo, Chief Operating Officer, MailOnline. “Index approaches programmatic advertising with a strategic and long lens, never rushing to produce a product or initiative without thoroughly vetting the idea both technically and commercially. I respect and trust the leadership team and look to them as a source of insight and ideas for MailOnline’s programmatic efforts. I’m excited to see them continue to expand into new horizons.”
Gardner, Doherty, Prudhomme along with the newly appointed sales and services leaders will oversee the success and growth of Index’s global publisher and buyer partnerships. They’ll also dedicate resources to the day-to-day education and strategic advisory for industry players looking to leverage the benefits of programmatic across a range of channels and locations.
About Index Exchange
Index Exchange is a global advertising marketplace where premium digital media companies sell their ad impressions transparently and in real-time. Built on the pillars of neutrality, openness, and the most reliable technology, Index is the ad exchange that media companies trust. With no other business interests to divide its attention, Index’s sole focus remains connecting media companies with premium demand at massive scale. Visit Index Exchange at www.indexexchange.com or @indexexchange.
IAB Europe welcomes the Manifesto for Online Data Transparency released by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) today.
We fully endorse the view that a sustainable digital advertising ecosystem requires the engagement and commitment of all stakeholders to practices that are seen to put consumers’ needs first, providing transparency, control and accountability. The ability for users to decide for themselves how they access online content and services – and, in turn, the continued availability of the content and services – depend on their being empowered to make informed choices in confidence.
IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework will be a critical tool in delivering on this promise. The Framework provides a cross-industry, open-source standard for publishers and suppliers of other online services to give consumers full visibility and control over who is allowed to process their data in connection with advertising, and for what purposes, in a way that meets the requirements of the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). More information about the Framework, including a link to the registration portal for vendors wishing to participate, is available on www.advertisingconsent.eu.
We look forward to continuing to work with WFA to realise the important objectives laid out in the Manifesto.
The first Virtual Programmatic Day in 2018 took place on 19 April.
The Virtual Programmatic Day H1 is an online event that explored the key areas impacting programmatic trading including GDPR, auction dynamics and transparency and trust.
You can watch the recording HERE and browse the presentation HERE.
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Held in Milan on 23-24 May, IAB Europe’s Annual 2-day conference Interact 2018 will feature contributions from all stakeholders with a say in the future of the digital ecosystem, from advertisers to publishers, to ad tech businesses, politicians and regulators. Together they’ll examine the forces disrupting digital, how businesses can adapt to thrive, and how we can reinvent the digital ecosystem to provide a firm foundation for business growth in the future.
Ahead of his keynote speech at Interact 2018, we had a nice chat with Andrea Chiapponi, Chief Commercial Officer Large Account from Italiaonline.
IAB Europe: You have an impressive history with experience at Google and with startups – how has this helped you, as the new CCO Large Account of Italiaonline, the first Italian internet company?
Andrea Chiapponi: It helped me get the role of CCO of Italy’s first internet company, for a start. Digital is my cup of tea and being able to work for companies such as Google or Italiaonline has put me in a very privileged viewpoint of a continuously evolving industry, challenging like no other.
IAB Europe: Italiaonline has an impressive 54% market share of Italian consumers, and owns Libero, the national email account. As you are now one year into your role, what is the future for the business and the Italian media industry?
Andrea Chiapponi: We are very proud of our market share and we are always working to improve it. How do we do that: providing our Users and Customers quality contents and brand safety. Italy is catching up on the international internet scenario and we expect a further boost in the next months.
IAB Europe: Given your McKinsey experience do you take inspiration from marketing strategies in traditional advertising media sectors? If so, which ones?
Andrea Chiapponi: McKinsey is a great place to work and I do take inspiration in what I do from all the companies that I have worked for previously. The traditional advertising market is very different from the digital one: different KPIs, measurement is a key differentiator, the ads are displayed on very different media, the way we can target the audience is immensely different. I think digital marketing allows you to see and reach your target in such a precise way (and in so many different ways) making this business very challenging. It transformed working with data from boring to creative.
IAB Europe: Which brands (or business leaders) worldwide do you admire?
Andrea Chiapponi: Rather than specific people, I do admire the services (and thus their businesses) that some of the most known international brands provide such as Amazon, WeChat or Spotify. They all changed the way we did things.
IAB Europe: What keeps you awake at night?
Andrea Chiapponi: My kids, diving into our bed in the middle of the night. I think I will miss that when they’ll be in college, but I don’t quite enjoy it now.
IAB Europe: What is your prediction for the next big thing for the digital advertising industry?
Andrea Chiapponi: It’s a secret I can’t reveal and that will make me the richest man in the world. Just joking. I think the social media scenario will go through sharp turns and deep changes that will affect the whole digital market. New media are also coming into play and may turn our paradigms around. We will all need to be able to change as quickly in order to keep up with the future.
Join us at INTERACT 2018 on 23-24 May in Milan!
Programmatic technology is now at the forefront of data-driven advertising, indeed, half of European display ad revenue is now traded programmatically and programmatic in Europe has reached a market value of more than €8bn according to IAB Europe’s 2016 Programmatic Market Sizing study. However, with regulatory challenges drastically questioning how the digital advertising ecosystem operates, programmatic trading needs to show that it can adapt to meet the evolving needs of the industry.
In this blog series, IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee and its members assess the impact and the opportunities of the GDPR on Programmatic Trading. In the first blog MediaMath and Sublime Skinz look at the unique opportunity that the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (the Framework) presents for the publisher community.
MediaMath believes that the GDPR embraces one of our core beliefs: that respecting consumer privacy is a necessity and an opportunity, not an option or burden. Consumers have long been telling us—through opt outs, ad blocking, and adoption of ad-free subscription services—that they are unhappy with the current state of advertising. This unhappiness stems from the perception that advertising is not balancing its capacity to provide engaging and informative content with the obligation to provide consumers with transparency about, and control over, their digital experience. For these reasons, the GDPR creates a valuable opportunity by encouraging advertisers to form more explicit relationships with consumers and provide advertising that they can feel good about, interact with in more meaningful ways, and trust.
Over the last 12 months, IAB Europe has developed a Transparency & Consent Framework (the Framework) in consultation with stakeholders across the industry which helps website operators become GDPR-ready. The Framework offers publishers new tools to provide transparency into the digital advertising ecosystem on which they rely to help monetise their service. Specifically, consumers are provided with clear information about data use by the publisher and its trusted partners. Another benefit for publishers is that they can collect higher rates from data-based buys, leading to increased revenue.
Additionally, the Framework offers the advertising ecosystem a common language by which to communicate consumer choices around the processing of their data for advertising and other purposes. The Framework is the best mechanism on the table today for advancing the ecosystem in a manner that benefits all stakeholders, including consumers.
Having been through a public consultation period which ended on 8 April, the final version of the Framework is set to launch mid-April 2018. (For more information and resources, visit the dedicated website here.) The registration process is now open for Vendors and Consent Management Providers to apply for approved status in the context of the Framework.
With enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) fast approaching, businesses across the globe are racing to prepare for the new legislation.
On the way to mastering GDPR compliance
Mastering GDPR compliance is vital within the complicated ecosystem of digital advertising, which is characterised by multiple vendors and highly complex data flows. If data can no longer be used to target users and personalise messaging, the advertising experience will become far less relevant and engaging, having a potentially detrimental impact on ad revenues.
But if the industry cooperates closely to meet the requirements of the GDPR, the regulation will bring enormous benefits to both publishers and advertisers – enforcing transparency within the ecosystem and building stronger consumer relationships. Transparency fosters brand loyalty – to both the publisher and the advertisers – and a recent data privacy survey revealed a staggering 88% of consumers cite transparency as the key to trust. To meet the challenge of compliance, the IAB Europe has developed a standard Transparency & Consent Framework for the online advertising industry.
The IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework is not just another GDPR compliance tool
IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework is a non-commercial, open source, cross-industry initiative. The Framework is designed for publishers to provide transparency and control for users allowing data to be collected and processed lawfully by their trusted partners. As a result it can be implemented by existing compliance tools.
A transparency tool that offers both user control and publisher control
Designed to accommodate different publisher and vendor needs, the Framework focuses on creating standards around transparency, control, and choice that can be implemented flexibly by different actors, including existing makers of transparency and consent tools. Providing transparency for both consumers and publishers into the monetisation partners present on websites and mobile apps, the Framework gives publishers control over which vendors operate on their sites, and consumers control over who is using their data.
A global list of vendors
Thanks to a centralised, industry-wide list of vendors that adhere to standard protocols and policies, managed by IAB Europe, the Framework makes it easy for publishers to decide who to work with. Finally, the Framework includes a fully customisable user interface for gaining consent as a legal basis for data processing, using standardised minimum disclosure language. This allows users to give specific consent for individual vendors and for different data processing purposes, while allowing publishers and demand sources the flexibility to work with various consent management providers.
A common language for the whole digital advertising ecosystem
The fact that there is a standardised language for providing transparency and requesting, storing, and sharing approved vendors and where relevant consent data along the digital supply chain means that companies can be confident in their transparency and consent status with a user. Ultimately, by allowing publishers and vendors to operate according to a single, open source standard, the Framework offers a better user experience than if every publisher tried to master GDPR compliance on their own.
A global push for data transparency
While the GDPR’s enforcement is seen as a defining moment for EU data privacy, it is just one element of a global push for data transparency. Last year, China updated its Cybersecurity Law to standardise the collection of personal information, while in February this year, Australia brought in the Notifiable Breaches scheme, obliging companies to notify individuals of a personal data breach that may result in serious harm.
The introduction of the GDPR has prompted countries outside the EU to review their own data laws to ensure they can still benefit from the global digital economy. If countries prove that their laws protect personal data on a similar level to the GDPR, the EU could accept them as adequate third countries, allowing a free flow of personal data while ensuring a high level of protection. This is the mechanism the UK will use after Brexit, and the EU is currently working with countries such as Japan and South Korea on similar adequacy decisions.
Taking part in this global push for transparency by ensuring they are GDPR compliant may seem a daunting prospect for publishers. But, by implementing IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework, they can make use of a global vendor list and standardised consent mechanisms that will still allow them to benefit from targeted, personalised advertising, served to engaged and accepting audiences.
The second blog in this series is available here.
The registration process is open for Vendors and Consent Management Providers to apply for approved status in the context of IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect on 25 May 2018, requires a legal basis for processing the personal data of EU residents. While the GDPR offers six possible legal bases, the two that digital publishers, advertisers and those that support them typically find most relevant include consent or legitimate interest. Crucially, publishers must also provide transparency into the list of vendors or partners they decide to work with that may also process their website visitor’s personal data.
IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework has been created to offer flexibility in terms of various paths towards complying with the law, and providing a standardised means of communicating signals to different parties in real time.
The member registry of vendors and CMPs (known as the List) will facilitate adherence to the Framework policy, provide transparency into the ways companies intend to comply with GDPR requirements, and centralise participants into one well-known location. Publishers can then use the List registry to view which of their partners are a part of the Framework, and determine which vendors to include in the transparency and consent user interfaces they decide to make available on their sites.
Registration is at register.consensu.org and there are separate pages for vendors and CMPs to complete the required information.
Once companies have submitted their application and received approval by IAB Europe, they need to pay the annual fee. We will then issue vendors with an ID and publish them in the Framework while CMPs will receive an ID and sub-domain and will be listed on advertisingconsent.eu.
You can find all the background information you need in the FAQ and on advertisingconsent.eu. We will also hold an open webinar on Friday, 20 April 17:00 CEST/16:00BST/11:00 EDT/ 08:00 EDT) when our technology and policy experts will be on hand to answer your questions - Register for the webinar: here
Business growth in the European Union depends on digital advertising, which contributes €526 billion annually to the EU economy and drives 90% of all growth in advertising spend.1 However, the digital ecosystem faces unprecedented and immediate disruption in the form of new technologies, new competitors, international turbulence and sweeping regulatory change. Its future has never been harder to predict.
At this critical juncture, IAB Europe releases the first agenda of its Interact 2018 conference: Disrupt. Adapt. Reinvent, bringing together a unique mix of speakers to explore the future of digital in Europe.
Held in Milan on 23-24 May, the two-day conference will feature contributions from all stakeholders with a say in the future of the digital ecosystem, from advertisers to publishers, to ad tech businesses, politicians and regulators. We’ll examine the forces disrupting digital, how businesses can adapt to thrive, and how we can reinvent the digital ecosystem to provide a firm foundation for business growth in the future:
Furthermore, world-class digital expertise will be celebrated at Interact 2018’s Gala Dinner on 23 May with the MIXX Awards Europe and the IAB Europe Research Awards ceremony championing the best digital advertising campaigns and digital advertising research projects of the past year.
Townsend Feehan, CEO of IAB Europe said: "I'm looking forward to welcoming global digital business leaders and marketers to Interact this year. With the backdrop of a volatile political climate and new policy and regulation, it promises to be an unmissable opportunity to meet peers, hear from industry leaders - some with controversial views - and to debate the latest issues affecting the industry today."
The industry is being continually disrupted – which means that leaders will need to reinvent their business strategies to adapt to the transformation of the digital landscape. Join us at Interact 2018 to explore the tactics that will secure success in the next era of digital. IAB Europe members and National IAB members can take advantage of the extended Early Bird offer until 13 April.
Visit the website for the latest updates on speakers, conference programme and book your conference pass here.
For bespoke sponsorship packages at Interact 2018, please contact Alison Fennah.
Contact:
Colombe Michaud, Communications Director, IAB Europe
+32495193830
About IAB Europe
IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.
With the public consultation on the first iteration of the Transparency & Consent Framework (the Framework) that closed on April 8, 2018, we are continuing to receive good, actionable feedback from publishers. A recurrent theme is whether and how the Framework can assist publishers to assert greater control over the delivery of advertising to their sites, and especially of valuable first-party data. Without getting ahead of ourselves, it seems at least possible that the Framework will provide an opportunity for publishers and ad tech to address a source of tension that has dogged their commercial relationship for over a decade, and reach a more durable modus vivendi.
With the GDPR coming into effect on 25 May 2018, and the current ePrivacy Directive still in force, the regulatory framework alone is already improving publishers’ ability to control which third parties are active on their sites. The ePrivacy Directive makes consent the primary legal basis for interactions with consumer devices in nearly all EU markets, and the publisher has privileged direct access to the user to obtain that consent. Consumer information obligations in the GDPR mean that even where the legitimate interest legal basis is used, third parties will rely on publishers to make the necessary disclosures to enable those third parties to process data. No disclosure, no legal basis. Publishers and other first parties are the gate-keepers on whom third-party vendors will be completely dependent.
The Framework reflects, and will further reinforce, the pivotal position of the publisher. Publishers will decide what choices are presented to their users – which third parties, processing data for what purpose. A publisher can ensure that only trusted partners are surfaced, and only for purposes that align to publisher objectives
Where user consent must be obtained, publishers will determine whether users are offered the option of granting global or only service-specific consent to a given vendor to process data for a given purpose. Publishers also have complete freedom to determine all other aspects of the user interface. Some publishers will want to build their own consent management platforms. Some will want to hire in a third-party Consent Management Provider. In either case, the look and feel will be adapted to the requirements and preferences of the publisher.
Publishers are free to unilaterally present additional different purposes in the same UI. However, only the standardised set of purposes can be transmitted through the Framework. As a result, any non-standardised purposes would need to be leveraged and/or transmitted through a means other than the Framework. This flexibility enables publishers, within the same UI, to provide transparency into, and request consent for, purposes in addition to the standardised ones – for example, for their own use, or to work with vendors outside of the online advertising ecosystem.
We’ll have a final wrap on feedback from other key stakeholders next week, as we move toward deployment in mid-April and the opening of the global vendor and CMP registration process.
