ID Provenance Guidelines

Background

With the recent (23/09/24) release of the IAB Tech Lab’s ID Provenance Specification here and the issues faced in the industry with ID Bridging, Bidswitch has put together the following policy.

Definition of ID Bridging

  • The practice of matching an identifier to another identifier (or identifiers) and then passing this downstream (i.e. to the buyer), applied in cases when the use of cookie syncing is not possible.
  • Declared Bridging of IDs is a legitimate practice as long as it is fully and correctly populated within the updated EIDs field in line with the ID Provenance Specifications.
  • Undeclared Bridging of IDs and populating the user.buyeruid field with a Bridged ID without prior permission of the buyer is misrepresentation and will not be tolerated on the Bidswitch Platform (covered in more detail in the Detection and Reporting Transparency section).

Bidswitch’s Support for ID Provenance Specifications

  • Full support provided for both DSP and SSP, further details are provided here:
    DSP Documentation,
    SSP Documentation.
  • Bidswitch will only populate the user.buyeruid with bridged IDs if prior agreement has been made with DSP partners. If so, there will be an entry and declaration of the bridged ID in the EIDs field.

SSP Requirements

  • Only send Cookie IDs in the buyeruid field that have been attained through Cookie Syncing as defined here:
    IAB OpenRTB Guidelines.
  • In all other scenarios, the buyeruid field should remain blank.
  • Bidswitch will hold a table of DSP preferences on passing bridged IDs in the user.buyeruid field and will be responsible for passing bridged IDs if/when required.
  • Populate the EIDs field fully using the new specifications.

DSP Recommendations

  • Adopt the new IAB Tech Lab ID Provenance specification such that you can read the EIDs fields and details.
  • Build support for decisioning, pacing, and reporting off different IDs contained within the EIDs field.

Detection and Reporting Transparency

  • Bidswitch runs its own detection for ID bridging and will provide reporting to both DSP and SSP if it is detected above a 5% threshold.
  • If undeclared ID Bridging continues for more than 30 days after notification by Bidswitch to the SSP, then Bidswitch reserves the right to engage and consult the DSPs for their preferred course of action.
  • Bidswitch reserves the right to withhold Media Payments against impressions bought with non-declared bridged IDs in cases when an MRC-accredited IVT vendor considers these impressions invalid.