Foto: Anthony Katsur, CEO of IABTech Lab tijdens 'IAB TechLab Update on Privacy and Video Standards'
Om uitgevers meer controle te geven over hun digitale advertenties, introduceert IAB Tech Lab een open-source oplossing genaamd Trusted Server. Deze nieuwe server-side advertentiebeheeroplossing stelt uitgevers in staat om hun advertentie-inkomsten volledig te beheren in een tijdperk waarin browsers steeds meer beperkingen opleggen en signalen verliezen. Met de introductie van Trusted Server krijgen uitgevers de macht terug om hun advertentieprocessen zelf te beheren, wat essentieel is voor het behoud van eerste-partij signalen en het verhogen van de privacy naleving. Lees hieronder het officiële persbericht:
New York, NY – March 20, 2025 – IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, announced today the launch of Trusted Server. This new open-source server-side ad management framework gives publishers complete control over ad monetization in an era of increasing browser restrictions and signal loss. Built as an open-source industry solution, Trusted Server shifts critical advertising functions away from the browser and into publisher-operated infrastructure—preserving first-party signal, enhancing privacy compliance, and mitigating publisher data leakage to support a more resilient approach to programmatic advertising.
"Enough is enough. The digital media industry has been playing defense for too long—watching browsers dictate the rules while publishers lose revenue,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IABTech Lab. “Trusted Server flips the script. We’re giving power back to the publishers to run their own advertising middle layer, ensuring granular data control and security. This is a line in the sand. Either the digital media ecosystem takes control of its destiny or we watch the open web shrink even further."
Browsers like Safari and Chrome have been tightening their grip on digital advertising, stripping away key signals – like third-party cookies and IP addresses, etc. – and entire monetization capabilities in the name of privacy, making it harder for publishers to sustain their businesses. Katsur continued, “It’s not just Chrome and Safari—these restrictions are widespread across browsers. The W3C is also considering widespread changes to browser standards that could further limit publisher visibility and control of their audience data. If this trend continues, publishers risk losing their ability to optimize ad revenue and stay competitive. But the industry isn’t standing by and letting it happen.”
With Trusted Server, publishers gain complete control and visibility into how, where, and when their first-party data is shared. This facilitates greater privacy controls for users and content owners while reclaiming ad revenue lost from browser restrictions, marking a turning point for publishers who have long struggled with external forces squeezing their business.
The Trusted Server can also improve the consumer experience across the open web. Katsur says, “The current way digital advertising runs is bogging down websites with too much third-party JavaScript and network calls, resulting in sluggish sites and a frustrating consumer experience. Moving as much as possible to the server side will lower page weight and eliminate myriad third party network calls, leading to improved page load times.”
Trusted Server enables publishers to manage ad requests, auction execution, and creative delivery entirely in their own server-side framework—removing reliance on third-party tools that browsers continue to restrict. Key features include:
The Trusted Server roadmap outlines robust support for third-party plugins. This plug-and-play approach facilitates seamless integration with fraud prevention, brand safety, identity solutions, and measurement partners without disrupting existing operations.
"We were glad to partner with IAB Tech Lab to test the Trusted Server prototype because we believe in what it stands for—giving publishers more control while keeping privacy front and center. Equativ's unique position as an independent end-to-end stack allowed us to integrate our ad server easily into the prototype," said Curt Larson, Chief Product Officer of Equativ. "This is the kind of balance the industry needs, and we can’t wait to see how publishers come together to put it into action and help keep the open web strong."
"The industry has been stuck in a privacy-vs-monetization death spiral, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With Trusted Server, publishers can monetize their business and keep privacy, regulatory compliance and data control at the forefront, " said Shailley Singh, EVP, Product & Chief Operating Officer at IAB Tech Lab. "This isn’t just an experiment. The technology is real, and we’re calling on publishers to help define the future."
The Tech Lab invites publishers, ad tech providers, and the broader industry to participate in the open-source Trusted Server initiative. On March 20, 2025, a working prototype will be showcased at Signal Shift: Privacy & Addressability in New York. During Q2 2025, IAB Tech Lab will launch a Trusted Server Task Force, accept industry contributions to the open source repository for the functionality that should be included in the MVP release, and invite publishers to test the Trusted Server implementation.Tech Lab will announce upcoming webinars, lunch and learns, and hands-on technical support for the initial test deployments with publishers and their monetization partners.
For more information, visit https://iabtechlab.com/tech-lab-trusted-server/. To sign up to test Trusted Server or to be part of the Trusted Server Task Force, complete this signup form.
