In May 2017, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Technology Laboratory introduced a text file into the programmatic advertising ecosystem with the goal to prevent unauthorized inventory sales through fraudulent practices such as domain spoofing and bot networks.
Historically, there has been a lack of transparency between the buyers, vendors and sellers of programmatic inventory. For context, this relationship has often been compared to a consumer inadvertently buying a fake Rolex watch. The consumer thinks that the watch is authentic and was simply a great deal. The first day the consumer wears it, the watch falls apart and he blames the brand on the bad experience, vowing never to buy a Rolex watch again. In this scenario, everyone loses except for the counterfeiter. The consumer didn’t get what he paid for, leaving a bad taste in his mouth with regard to that brand, and the brand didn’t get compensated for the sale and came out of the transaction with a damaged reputation.