SHEDDING LIGHT ON NEW DIGITAL BUYING PRACTICES

TAG TRANSPARENCY PROGRAM IS SHEDDING LIGHT ON NEW DIGITAL BUYING PRACTICES; ESTABLISHES HIGH BAR FOR COMPLIANCE AND AUDITING

When the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) was created last year, it was given a mandate to tackle four of the most significant challenges affecting the digital advertising supply chain: fraud, piracy, malware, and lack of transparency.

Already this year, TAG has unveiled two major initiatives: the first to reduce piracy by validating trusted anti-piracy technology providers and the second to fight fraud through a shared industry database of domains that are known sources of fraudulent traffic.

Today, TAG is pleased to update our progress in improving transparency through the Business Transparency Compliance Program. The program, formerly run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and known as the Quality Assurance Guidelines (QAG), will henceforth be managed by TAG and renamed the Inventory Quality Guidelines (IQG) during Q3 of 2015, a name that better captures the purpose of the program.

The IQG help leading companies establish an environment of trust in the digital advertising marketplace through a common framework to describe and disclose the characteristics of advertising inventory.

While all past compliance has been self-certified, going forward TAG will require that all IQG-compliant companies undergo an independent validation from a third-party, TAG-approved auditor. Today we are delighted to announce that the following three companies have taken the lead in achieving a higher level of compliance by selecting that independent audit option and therefore becoming Tier 1 Compliant under the QAG 2.0:

Dstillery
engage:BDR
OpenX

Additionally we are pleased to announce that the following companies have chosen to self-certify their compliance under the QAG 2.0, thus showing they adhere to high industry standards of disclosures regarding inventory transparency:

Adap.tv
Adtegrity
Amobee (formerly Adconion Direct)
AOL
Blinkx
BrightRoll
Chango
Collective
Conversant
DataXu
Digilant
Forbes Media
Gamut (formerly Cox Digital Solutions)
Goodway Group
Google
Index Exchange (formerly Casale Media)
Matomy Media Group
Microsoft Advertising
Netmining
PulsePoint
Rocket Fuel
Sovrn
Specific Media
SpotXchange
Tapad
Technorati
Time Warner Cable
Tremor Video
Unruly
Varick Media Management
Vibrant Media
Videology
Virool
Xaxis
Yahoo!
YuMe

Going forward, TAG plans a series of important changes as part of the Inventory Quality Guidelines 2.1.  There will be three main areas of improvement, all designed to help the IQG reach a wider audience and offer a more robust set of disclosures for the benefit of the Digital Advertising Industry:

1. The disclosure requirements will incorporate programmatic considerations, to conform to the current reality of the digital advertising ecosystem’s Real-Time Bidding and Programmatic solutions.
2. The guidelines will be open to inventory buyers, i.e. advertisers, agencies, and trade desks, to ensure that they are also encouraged to make certain disclosures to their business partners about their advertising, making our ecosystem more transparent and trustworthy throughout the supply chain.
3. In order to create a stronger set of rules, the guidelines will mandate independent validation to highlight the need for in-depth auditing mechanisms and reinforce the industry’s commitment to providing more transparency in the advertising transaction process.

TAG’s Business Transparency Committee will review the suggested edits, finalize changes, and the document will be approved by the TAG Board for implementation. If you would like to participate in the guidelines revision process, feel free to email us at info@tagtoday.net.

This set of updated guidelines will be published during Q3 of 2015, and it will be implemented for the next IQG 2.1 Compliance Cycle, from April 1, 2016 until March 31, 2017.  Upon training on the requirements of the guidelines and the enforcement process, companies will have a reasonable period to comply with the new requirements before being invited to screen and select from our accredited auditors starting January 1, 2016.  We will then review the submissions by the deadline of March 31, 2016 to determine and publish those companies compliant under the new IQG 2.1.

Should you have any questions about the above, feel free to reach out to the TAG Team at qag@tagtoday.net. Also, if you are compliant with QAG 2.0, please be on the lookout for your certification logos, which you may display for internal and/or promotional use. Finally, please visit our website at www.tagtoday.net to stay up to date on the latest TAG initiatives.  We look forward to hearing from you, and congratulate again all compliant companies for their diligence and business transparency!

Juliette Riviere
Senior Director of Compliance Programs
Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)
(212) 380 4719