The Trust & Consent Framework (TCF), is a mechanism devised by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), which creates an industry standard for publishers, advertisers and ad tech platforms to gather & store whether your users have consented to having their data processed.

As a result of the GDPR in Europe (and similar privacy laws rolling out around the world), intended to provide users with more control over how their data is used, it became necessary for a standard to be developed to ensure all vendors throughout the advertising ecosystem were complying with privacy legislation. As a result, in April 2018, the IAB launched TCF 1.1.

TCF 1.1 addressed a number of the issues regarding the gathering and processing of consent. It allowed for a curated global list of vendors who had an interest in processing users’ data, all of whom were able to make use of the Consent Management Platform API.

However, it was not without its shortcomings. It made no provisions for legitimate interest, it relied heavily on self-enforcement and Google (the largest player in the ad tech ecosystem) refused to take part in it.

TCF 2.0 addresses all of these shortcomings, while continuing to operate as an industry standard.

  • Provisions for legitimate interest have been included
  • Improved self regulation
  • Google is now a part of the framework

The IAB states that the update to TCF 2.0 will

… enable consumers to grant or withhold consent and also exercise their ‘right to object’ to data being processed. Consumers also gain more control over whether and how vendors may use certain features of data processing, for example, the use of precise geolocation.

Publishers employing TCF v2.0 gain greater control and flexibility with respect to how they integrate and collaborate with their technology partners. New publisher functionality allows them to restrict the purposes for which personal data is processed by vendors on a publisher’s website on a per-vendor basis.

TCF 2.0 was originally slated for release from March – June 2020 (with support for 1.1 being withdrawn on June 30th). However, this date was pushed back and the deadline for vendors and publishers to fully support TCF 2.0 is now mid-August 2020.

What Has Trade House Media Done to Support TCF 2.0?

TCF 2.0 represents a major update from the previous framework, requiring significant cooperation between ad tech vendors, publishers and advertisers. Entire platforms have had to be overhauled in the backend to support these changes.

From a practical perspective, there are two areas that we have addressed to ensure we are fully compliant with the TCF 2.0 launch.

  • Updating our Codebase
  • Managing Vendors
Updating our Codebase

Updating the core Trade House Media systems to support Prebid 3.27.0 not only gives us support for the GDPR legislation in Europe, but the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) laws as well. This has all happened on the backend and has been successfully tested and rolled out.

Managing Vendors

We work with a number of Consent Management Platforms (CMP), which have had to make extensive updates to their codebase to support TCF 2.0. We have worked closely with these partners to ensure consent is managed effectively throughout the supply chain.

What This Means for Publishers?

From a publisher’s perspective, not complying with the TCF 2.0 update will have a material impact on your ability to earn revenue through advertising on your site. Even if you have successfully been gathering and passing consent on to buyers in the past, the significant changes to the framework and API mean that, come mid-August, you probably won’t be providing it to them in a format that they can read without first making changes to support TCF 2.0.

Effectively, buyers will not be able to read the consent in the bidstream, meaning they will assume that no consent has been gathered and will adjust their bidding strategy accordingly. A publisher running an older version of Prebid or working with a CMP that doesn’t support TCF 2.0 will likely not be passing consent to your buyers once the new framework goes live

Is There Anything Publishers Need to Do?

If you are a Trade House Media publisher, no. There is nothing to take care of on your end.

For anyone else, ensure you are working with a reputable consent management platform who fully support the IAB’s TCF 2.0, that you are running the most up-to-date version of Prebid and that you work with your buyers to verify that they are seeing consent correctly in the bidstream.

A full list of all vendors (including whether that are TCF 2.0 operational) can be found here: TCF 2.0 vendor list.

If you would like to speak to a member of the team to discuss what we have done to ensure we are compliant or how we can help you navigate the various ad tech initiatives being regularly announced, get in touch with us today. We specialise in providing unrivalled ad management as a service to blue chip clients globally and would love to speak to you.