The IAB Europe's Programmatic Trading Committee has released the latest edition of the Supply Chain Transparency guide, which aims to provide understanding and accountability across the digital advertising supply chain, focusing on aspects such as data, cost, and inventory sources. To provide transparency, the guide gives stakeholders critical questions to be posed at various stages of the supply chain. The guide also includes questions addressing sustainability as a testament to the industry's recognition of its environmental impact and promoting environmentally responsible and socially conscious practices. The questions in the guide hold direct implications for sustainability considerations and prompts stakeholders to evaluate their choices in terms of energy consumption, reselling practices, and bid optimisation strategies. It encourages a holistic approach to sustainability, urging participants to consider the entire lifecycle of digital advertising, from data sourcing to ad delivery, and assess the associated environmental implications.

The International Advertising Bureau (IAB Europe) has published an open letter by an industry coalition of 45 companies from across the digital economy calling on EU policymakers, including the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, to ensure sufficient scrutiny, consultation and impact assessment of proposed changes under Articles 88a and 88b of the Digital Omnibus. While supporting the broader objective of simplifying the EU regulatory framework and strengthening competitiveness through a more coherent and innovation-friendly digital rulebook, the coalition argues that the proposed provisions could increase legal uncertainty, technical complexity and economic disruption across the digital ecosystem. It further warns that the measures could have adverse economic effects, distort competition by shifting the management of users' privacy choices towards browsers, reinforce the market power of large integrated platforms, and negatively affect publishers, businesses, and users' access to free or lower-cost online content and services. Signatories include, among others, Canal+, Criteo, DoubleVerify and Dailymotion.

IAB Europe has announced the collaborative release of the first industry definitions and measurement standards for in-store Retail Media. Developed alongside IAB, these standards aim to introduce clear terminology for in-store digital Retail Media components, establish measurement methods for tracking, reporting and analysing campaign performance, create guidelines for in-store advertising formats and identify key store zones which can be deployed. The initiative involved key stakeholders and workshops, with the goal of driving transparency and enabling retailers and brands to tap into new revenue streams in digital advertising. These new standards are open to public comment until 1 November 2024.

IAB Europe has released a report on the digital advertising industry's readiness for the 'Post Third-Party Cookie' era based off of insights from over 160 industry professionals across Europe. The report's findings include that 57% agreed with the decision to deprecate third-party cookies, 43% either disagreed or were uncertain about its impact and 76% acknowledged their reliance on third-party cookies. However, responses were mixed when respondents were questioned about their readiness for deprecations, with 51% indicating preparedness for the deprecations and 34% disagreeing. Some of the respondents in disagreement noted that most of the industry still needs help in preparing for the post third party cookie future. The respondents further expressed the need for stronger first-party data strategies, increased industry collaboration, and a boost in innovation beyond the traditional use of cookies and stressed the importance of robust privacy guidance, noting that data privacy and security concerns in any new advertising framework needs to be addressed.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe has, along with other industry representatives, sent a position paper to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) outlining key concerns and recommendations regarding Opinion 08/2024 (the Opinion), published in April 2024, related to the use of ‘Consent or Pay’ models by 'large online platforms', and to the EDPB’s upcoming draft Guidelines intended to have a broader scope. Key concerns include the EDPB’s lack of consultation on the Opinion, the mischaracterisation of the model as rendering data protection rights conditional on payment, and the Opinion ignoring the need to strike the appropriate balance between the right to data protection and the freedom to conduct business.

IAB Europe has released updated guidance to support advertising industry compliance with Article 26 of the EU Digital Services Act (EU DSA). Developed in partnership with IAB Tech Lab and industry stakeholders, the EU DSA Transparency Implementation Guidelines v1.1 introduces refinements to the framework supporting the OpenRTB DSA Transparency Extension. These include clarification on dynamic creative optimisation use cases, recommendations to prevent double rendering of EU DSA information, and the integration of support for VAST icon rendering in video advertising.

The IAB Technology Laboratory (IAB Tech Lab) has announced the publication of its Agentic Roadmap, which outlines how the digital advertising industry can scale agentic buying and selling by extending existing open standards rather than introducing new frameworks. The roadmap focuses on integrating modern protocols with established standards to enable secure and interoperable agentic execution. Building on established transaction, measurement and privacy frameworks, including OpenRTB, AdCOM, OpenDirect, VAST, the Deal API, as well as privacy frameworks such as the Global Privacy Protocol (GPP) and the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), the roadmap integrates these foundations with modern protocols, including Model Context Protocol, Agent2Agent and gRPC, to support high-performance execution. Planned initiatives for 2026 include open-source reference implementations for buyer and seller agents, a neutral Model Context Protocol server, standardised agent profiles and trust and measurement signals aligned with existing privacy standards. To support industry understanding and adoption of the roadmap, IAB Tech Lab will host a webinar on 28 January 2026 and launch monthly Agentic AI Boot Camps starting on 12 February 2026.

IAB Tech Lab has launched the PAIR (Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation) Protocol, which provides advertisers and publishers with a privacy-centric approach to matching and activating their first-party audiences for advertising use cases without third-party cookies. The PAIR Protocol is an open standard, enabling interoperability between data clean rooms, and uses advanced cryptographic methods to securely match multiple-encrypted keys without exposing personal information. It also allows publishers to benefit from increased revenue opportunities by leveraging authenticated users by matching them with advertiser data, without any data leakage. Comments on the Protocol are welcomed until 25 October 2024.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau Technology Laboratory (IAB Tech Lab), in partnership with IAB Europe, has opened public consultation on version 2.3 of the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) technical specifications. The update mandates inclusion of the Disclosed Vendors segment in TC Strings to address vendor disclosure ambiguity in data processing scenarios. The specifications will be finalised by end of May 2025, with implementation required by 1 February 2026. Changes aim to clarify vendor disclosure status particularly when processing data for Special Purposes under Legitimate Interest. The consultation will run until 19 May 2025

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Lab has announced a proposed upgrade to the OpenRTB SupplyChain Object, designated SupplyChain v1.1, intended to expand programmatic advertising transparency by adding technical custody disclosures alongside existing payment-flow data. Developed by the Programmatic Supply Chain Working Group, the update would allow buyers to identify not only which companies participate in the commercial flow of a transaction, but also which entities take technical custody of bid requests as they move through systems such as Prebid, ad servers, SSAI platforms, SDKs and wrappers. The update uses an hp=0 designation for entities that take technical custody but are not part of the payment flow. The upgrade is expected to help buyers improve supply-path optimisation, reduce duplicative bid requests and better identify all companies involved in programmatic transactions. The upgrade is open for public comment until 21 August 2026.

The IAB Technology Laboratory (IAB Tech Lab) has announced a new Large Language Model (LLM) Content Ingest API Initiative on 4 June 2025. The framework aims to establish technical standards for compensating publishers when AI systems use their content and enable brands to control how their information appears in AI-generated outputs. The initiative responds to reported 15% decreases in publisher traffic due to AI content scraping. IAB Tech Lab has invited publishers, brands, and AI system developers to participate in an upcoming workshop to develop practical tools for content access control and monetisation. Interested parties can provide feedback on the framework by contacting support@iabtechlab.com.

The IAB Technology Laboratory (IAB Tech Lab) has published a new framework designed to standardise how containerised, agent-powered services are integrated into real-time programmatic advertising. It aims to reduce integration overhead, maintain platform control and security, enable rapid market adaptation and support composable bidstream architectures. The framework outlines core requirements for agent participation in the bidstream, intent-driven actions, enterprise-grade container deployment, high-performance communication and security by design. It is intended to support broad and evolving use cases—including data collaboration, deal activation, audience segmentation, fraud detection and bid or supply path optimisation. By using container-based deployment, high-performance protocols and open standards, the ARTF seeks to deliver sub-millisecond performance, promote interoperability and prepare programmatic infrastructure for emerging AI-driven agentic systems.