• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 13, 2024

Protecting consumer privacy has become part of doing business in digital advertising. About 19 states have privacy laws, and more are on the way.

Supporting brands sometimes requires partnerships, and when adhering to regulations that can become challenging, especially since many state privacy laws now require accountability and transparency to ensure all partners handle personal information lawfully.

“Mandatory audit provisions in contracts now requires businesses to ensure partners handle personal information lawfully,” said Michael Hahn, executive vice president, general counsel at IAB & IAB Tech Lab.

To support this industry change, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on Tuesday launched the IAB Diligence Platform powered by SafeGuard Privacy.

The development of IAB Diligence Platform was initially announced in January 2024. Industry privacy lawyers and law firms collaborated in the Privacy Implementation and Accountability Task Force (PIAT) to draft business and privacy questions for each digital advertising use case and vendor type. 

“Due diligence will be an important factor in whether one company takes responsibility for a partner’s wrongdoing,” Hahn said.

IAB working groups have drafted industry-specific questionnaires now available for use in the platform to the entire digital advertising industry. It offers options to meet a variety of privacy regulations.

Questioners now provide a way to conduct due diligence with companies in which one company conducts business with another. It will help all partners remain compliant and accountable for the data collected and shared among partners.

Companies like Adform, Hershey, and Raptive have been working with this process. Vinny Rinaldi, Head of Media, U.S. CMG & Salty, Hershey, said the platform has helped the company manage privacy regulations and ensure advertising partners meet high-data protection standards.

About 80 lawyers from publishers, agencies, and ad tech companies participated by providing input on the questions that tie to the flow of digital advertising and business use cases to ensure third-party due diligence.

Until now, ensuring vendor compliance has been a manual, complex, and time-consuming process. Now users can complete relevant questionnaires once and share them with current and prospective partners to streamline the diligence process and reduce repetitive tasks.

The platform also has been updated to address current state privacy laws, the Protecting Americans' Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, and industry compliance initiatives like the Multi-State Privacy Agreement (MSPA).