Standards
The technical specifications and measurement definitions that digital advertising runs on. Most are published by the IAB Tech Lab and the Media Rating Council; the rest come from the platforms that control a layer of the stack.
| Standard | Published by | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| OpenRTB | IAB Tech Lab | Protocol for bid requests and responses in real-time bidding. Version 2.6 is the deployed standard; 2.6 added CTV and podcast fields and the durable identifier extensions. Every programmatic transaction on the open web is an OpenRTB conversation. |
| VAST 4.x | IAB Tech Lab | XML template for delivering video ads to players, with tracking events, media files, and support for server-side ad insertion, mezzanine files, and Open Measurement. VPAID is deprecated; SIMID replaces it for interactive video. |
| Open Measurement (OMID) | IAB Tech Lab | SDK and interface that lets verification vendors measure viewability and invalid traffic in apps and CTV without vendor-specific code. |
| ads.txt and app-ads.txt | IAB Tech Lab | Publisher-published list of authorized sellers, checked by buyers to reject unauthorized inventory and spoofed domains. |
| sellers.json and SupplyChain object | IAB Tech Lab | Seller-published identification of every party they represent, and the OpenRTB object that carries the full path of intermediaries in each bid request. |
| Transparency and Consent Framework 2.2 | IAB Europe | Standard for capturing GDPR consent and transmitting it through the supply chain as a TC String. Required by Google for EEA and UK monetization. |
| Global Privacy Platform | IAB Tech Lab | Single string carrying privacy signals across US state laws, Canada, and the European TCF section. Successor to the US Privacy String. |
| Global Privacy Control | GPC working group | Browser signal for opting out of sale and sharing, legally binding under California and several other state laws. |
| IAB Content Taxonomy 3.0 | IAB Tech Lab | Standard categories for classifying content, used for contextual targeting and brand suitability. |
| Audience Taxonomy 1.1 | IAB Tech Lab | Standard categories for describing audience segments across data providers. |
| Fixed and Flexible Ad Specifications | IAB Tech Lab | Standard display ad sizes, aspect ratios, and file weight limits (the LEAN principles). |
| MRC Viewable Impression Guidelines | Media Rating Council | Definition of a viewable impression: 50 percent of pixels for one continuous second (display) or two seconds (video); 100 percent for large canvas units. |
| MRC Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines | Media Rating Council | Standards for detecting and removing general and sophisticated invalid traffic from counted impressions. |
| GARM Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework | World Federation of Advertisers | Common definitions of unsafe content categories and four risk levels for suitability. GARM itself was discontinued in 2024; the framework remains in use by verification vendors and platforms. |
| IAB/4A's Standard Terms and Conditions 3.0 | IAB and 4A's | Default contract terms for US digital media insertion orders: cancellation, discrepancies, makegoods, data use, and payment. |
| SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit | Apple | Privacy-preserving install attribution for iOS; postbacks are delayed, aggregated, and limited in detail. |
| Privacy Sandbox APIs | Topics, Protected Audience, and Attribution Reporting APIs in Chrome; Privacy Sandbox on Android. Scope reduced after Google dropped third-party cookie deprecation in 2025. | |
| Unified ID 2.0 | The Trade Desk (open source) | Email- and phone-based encrypted identifier for addressable advertising without third-party cookies. |
| Prebid.js | Prebid.org | Open-source header bidding wrapper and the de facto standard for publisher-side auctions. |
| Ad Product Taxonomy and Ad Management API | IAB Tech Lab | Standards for describing ad products and creative approval workflows between DSPs and SSPs. |
Terms used above are defined in the infrastructure section of the glossary.