Develops and maintains open technical standards that enable transparency, efficiency, and trust across the global digital advertising ecosystem while addressing fraud, privacy, and interoperability challenges.
Last updated Feb 18, 2026 by AI Enrichment
Industry-leading technical standards body for digital advertising
IAB Tech Lab is the technical standards-setting body of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a global digital advertising trade association. Founded to develop technical standards, solutions, and best practices for the digital advertising industry, IAB Tech Lab serves as a critical infrastructure organization that enables the programmatic advertising ecosystem to function efficiently and transparently. The organization develops and maintains widely-adopted industry standards including ads.txt, app-ads.txt, sellers.json, OpenRTB, VAST, VPAID, and the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) for GDPR compliance. IAB Tech Lab operates as a non-profit consortium that brings together major technology companies, publishers, agencies, brands, and ad tech vendors to collaborate on technical solutions for the digital advertising industry. Rather than being a traditional commercial AdTech company, it functions as an industry utility that creates open standards and frameworks used by thousands of companies globally. Its work is essential to addressing challenges around ad fraud, brand safety, privacy compliance, measurement, and interoperability across the complex programmatic advertising supply chain.
Authorized Digital Sellers standard that allows publishers to declare who is authorized to sell their inventory
Mobile app version of ads.txt for authorized seller declaration
Supply chain transparency file that identifies all authorized sellers of inventory
Real-time bidding protocol standard for programmatic advertising transactions
Video Ad Serving Template for standardized video ad delivery
Video Player-Ad Interface Definition for interactive video ads
Privacy compliance framework for GDPR and user consent management
Standardized viewability and verification measurement for mobile apps
Initiative to develop privacy-focused alternatives to third-party cookies
Framework for data usage transparency in programmatic advertising