July 5, 2010 – The IAB has published a set of guidelines that it wants advertising networks and exchanges to follow to help businesses to conduct their advertising online.

The Register shared this news in their article, “Online ads need standards”. The IAB claims its guidelines, produced by its Networks and Exchanges Committee, are designed to eliminate confusion about complex terms and processes as well as to help advertisers to ensure that their advertisements don’t appear on pages carrying copyright-infringing content.

Specifically the guidelines state,

“IAB Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines address two key objectives for the buying community: provide detailed information for acquiring inventory; contextual taxonomy and targeting; inventory vetting [and] data disclosure [and] eliminate confusion through a common vocabulary for targeting [and] data,”

Standardization seems to be a worthy goal. What problems with implanting these guidelines do you foresee?

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.