IAB Tech Lab Board Members Call on Industry to Support Open Standards
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As the IAB Tech Lab’s REBOOT 2020 virtual summit kicks off today (and continues on the 16th and 17th), IAB Tech Lab Board members have committed to the principles of Project Rearc and collaboration towards open technical standards and privacy-centric solutions for addressable digital media.

These include:

  • Device-agnostic solutions that put the consumer, not the device or interface, at the center of privacy
  • Predictable privacy for consumers, instead of fragmented, proprietary privacy settings
  • Offering consumers user-friendly transparency and control, with clear communication of the value exchange, and respecting consumer choice
  • Leveraging technical mechanisms within advertising systems that ensure ongoing adherence to consumer privacy choices and addressability standards

Participating companies pledging their support, and calling upon the industry to join in, include:

  • ConsenSys
  • Extreme Reach
  • GroupM
  • GumGum
  • Index Exchange
  • LiveRamp
  • Media.net
  • MediaMath
  • Neustar
  • OpenX
  • Oracle Data Cloud
  • PubMatic
  • Quantcast
  • Tapad
  • The Trade Desk
  • Xandr

“Collectively with our members, we support an open ecosystem, and technical standards that fuel innovation in content and services while offering consumers transparency, choice, and control across all their experiences,” said Dennis Buchheim, President, IAB Tech Lab.

“Since the launch of Project Rearc earlier this year, we have been overwhelmed with the number of organizations rolling up their sleeves to collaborate on open solutions that offer uniform, predictable privacy settings for consumers who choose ad-supported access to content and services,” said Jordan Mitchell, Senior Vice President, Privacy, Identity, and Data, IAB Tech Lab.

A sustainable, respectful internet requires trust in the value chain from the content provider through the end consumer, with advertisers playing a pivotal role in funding the value exchange. Launched in February 2020, Project Rearc was created to re-architect digital marketing with tech standards that harmonize consumer privacy, personalization, and safety, as third-party cookies and other core technologies and laws evolve. Project Rearc also serves as the technical arm of the newly formed Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (the “Partnership”), taking business and policy guidance from the Partnership participants to inform technical standards efforts, while continuing to engage with other stakeholders globally.

IAB Tech Lab board members are committing to support, and asking their customers and partners to support standards around:

  • Privacy-preserving methods for supporting business activities such as targeting, frequency capping, measurement, attribution, and campaign/creative optimization
  • Security for consumer-provided IDs to prevent unauthorized use and data collection
  • Accountability mechanisms and programs that enable companies to demonstrate that they are compliant with data collection and privacy choices while providing a safer, more sustainable consumer experience by reducing fraud and unnecessary costs.

“Our industry needs widespread collaboration in order to solve for addressability, frequency capping, and measurement,” said Mike O’Sullivan, VP of Product, Index Exchange. “Project Rearc is an integral part of the next steps our industry will need to take as we seek to build solutions that preserve the integrity of consumers and privacy, and Index Exchange is looking forward to continuing to be a leading part of the conversation.”

“Identity and addressability continue to fragment at an accelerated pace, compounded by increasing restrictions at both the device- and browser-levels,” said Travis Clinger, senior vice president, head of addressability and ecosystem at LiveRamp. “Amidst this fragmentation, it’s ever critical that we advocate for a healthy, competitive ecosystem built on trust and authentication, with consumer privacy, control and transparency at the center. This will only be possible if we work together to create and uphold a unified set of operating principles that honor all constituencies across the industry.”

“As regulatory and browser changes reshape identity across the open web, the IAB Tech Lab is taking the lead on innovative, privacy-forward, cross-channel solutions with Project Rearc,” said Karan Dalal, SVP Operations at Media.net. “Media.net is one of the industry’s leading contextual advertising companies, working with publishers, platforms and advertisers alike. As an IAB Tech Lab board member, we’re excited to bring this collaborative expertise to Project Rearc at such a critical moment, shaping its development and future as we enter a new era in advertising.”

“As the advertising industry prepares for a future in which the third-party cookie is no longer an option, the availability of an identity solution that addresses the challenges of a complex ad tech ecosystem, evolving regulatory changes, and growing demand from consumers to control their data is critical,” said Anudit Vikram, SVP, Product, MediaMath. “Working together with IAB Tech Lab and our partners across the ecosystem, MediaMath is committed to enabling brands to reach their audiences with increased scale, accuracy, and control to improve both the consumer experience and business outcomes.”

“With the cookie and other perishable identifiers on their way out, the continued expansion of privacy regulation, and the disruption brought by the pandemic, marketing enterprises will need to make drastic changes in order to future-proof their business,” said Steve Silvers, SVP Customer Experience at Neustar. “This will require the creation of a completely new marketing ecosystem built on trusted connections between brands, publishers, and platforms with identity at its core.”

“OpenX has a history of taking aggressive steps to reduce fraud, improve quality, and make advertising as impactful as possible in the complex ad tech ecosystem,” said Paul Ryan, CTO of OpenX. “We are excited to be working with IAB Tech Lab and our peers through Project Rearc to give consumers greater control of their privacy while continuing to enable the measurement that allows ad tech to fund much of the content on the open internet.”

“At Quantcast, respect for privacy is woven into the fabric of our business. This inspired us to be one of the driving forces behind the IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) and build one of the first-ever consent management platforms (CMPs), Quantcast Choice® based on the TCF standard,” said Peter Day, Chief Technology Officer at Quantcast. “As an industry, it’s our job to ensure that we can facilitate an ethical and sustainable future for ad funded content. To do this, it will be imperative that we create solutions that uphold transparency and consumer privacy globally, while ensuring that all stakeholder voices and considerations are heard.”

“The Trade Desk is building on IAB Tech Lab’s Project Rearc roadmap to create Unified OpenID 2.0, which upgrades today’s cookie technology and incorporates an encrypted ID solution, single sign-on across the open internet, and simple user controls,” said Dave Pickles, The Trade Desk Co-Founder and CTO. “This is a critical, industry-wide collaboration, and we are working with a range of industry partners to develop this upgraded approach, which will be free and open-source.”