IAB updates standard online campaign terms and conditions

The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB) has announced an update to its standard terms and conditions, which govern the relationship between media vendors and buyers. It is the first update since 2008.

The most significant change is what Ford described as “much more robust” data section, reflecting the increased role that data plays in online transactions. The new terms and conditions require companies to be more transparent about which ad servers and data verification services they are using, said Ford.

Among the highlights of the updated standard terms and conditions:

• All parties involved in a campaign must be transparently identified on the insertion order, including third party ad serves, analytics/data verification tags, viewability tags and other third parties being used to collect and report on the campaign

• More protection for Publisher data against the unapproved harvesting, collecting and repurposing of audience data,

• The default billing numbers will be based on publisher counts. If a publisher agrees to bill off agency counts, logins must be provided to the publisher to ensure real-time reporting is available

• Companies must state how discrepancies that are above the 10% allowance will be addressed

• Clearly identified payment liability scenarios

The standard terms and conditions of the U.S. IAB were used as a reference document, with the Canadian document containing much of the same wording. The wording around protection of data, for example, is almost verbatim to that of the U.S., said Ford.

For those seeking further analysis, below are links to reference documentation to facilitate with research. The first link below is a comparison of the 2008 version vs. the 2013 release, and the second link is a comparison between the IAB US and IAB Canada versions.

2008 vs. 2013 Comparison Chart

IAB U.S. vs. IAB Canada Comparison Chart