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.
“It’s a significant period of time given that the digital industry moves so quickly,” said Julie Ford, vice-president of operations for the IAB in Toronto. “We felt it was a good time to look at the industry once again, get some volunteers on board, and have a discussion around some of the wording just to make sure [the terms and conditions] were up to date.”
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
• 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
• Specifications concerning ownership of data collected are addressed, protecting against unapproved harvesting, collecting and repurposing of publisher audience data
• 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.
A task force drawn from members of its IAB’s agency and publisher councils and its ad network and exchange committee drafted the new terms and conditions. The task force was created in March 2012 and met as a group seven times. The new standard terms and conditions were subject to what Ford called a “rigorous” review before being formally introduced last month.
Task force members included Bell Media’s Brad Hayden; Media Experts’ Scott Atkinson; OMD/Accuen’s Tom Fotheringham; Casale Media’s Kristina Gubanov; ZenithOptimedia’s Veronica Holmes; Cadreon’s Tessa Ohlendorf; Maxus Canada’s Darren Hardeman and TC Media’s Eric Latreille.
The task force plans to regroup in November to weigh feedback on the new terms, said Ford. “It’s my hope that we don’t wait as long next time to do a re-write,” she said. “I think this will become more of an annual thing.”
Ford said that the terms and conditions are designed to ensure a quicker workflow between sellers and buyers. “Companies may have specific addendums that they attach for their specific needs, but with having the core standard terms and conditions set, business can happen a lot quicker.”
