London – 18 October 2017.

In an effort to raise the standards in digital advertising and address the key issues facing the industry, the IAB UK has launched the “IAB Gold Standard” initiative, comprising three primary actions that media owners can take.

Initially, the Gold Standard has three fundamental aims - to reduce ad fraud, to improve the digital advertising experience and to increase brand safety. Spearheading the initiative are all 24 IAB UK board member companies (including Facebook and Google) who’ve publicly signed a letter committing to the following three actions:

1.      Reduce ad fraud by implementing the ads.txt initiative on all sites carrying ads

2.      Improve the digital advertising experience by adhering to the LEAN principles, the Coalition for Better Advertising standards and never using the 12 “bad” ads 

3.      Increase brand safety by working with JICWEBS with a view to becoming certified or maintaining certification