INTERNET ADVERTISING BUREAU - STATEMENT OF COMPLIANCE

The purpose of the Internet Advertising Bureau (‘IAB’) to empower the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. In carrying out this mission, IAB members and non-member attendees must: 

• Act with the highest regard for their ethical, legal and professional obligations and the IAB’s purpose, values, and legal interests. 

• Follow the Guiding Principles as follows. 

Guiding principles - What information can be shared? 

There are many positive aspects to the IAB and information that can be shared between members can include: 

• Non-confidential information that is in the public domain.  

• Technical media and marketing industry issues including standards, sustainability and health and safety matters.  

• Non-strategic technical or scientific data that results in benefits for the media and marketing industries and society more widely.  

• Media and marketing industry public relations or lobbying initiatives; provided competitively sensitive information is not shared in the process, and advice has been taken if initiatives may exclude market operators.  

• Media and marketing industry standards that promote responsible advertising, provided advice has been taken on the development, transparency, accessibility and potential competitive impact of these standards.  

• Case studies and insights. 

• Any data supplied to IAB by members for benchmarking purposes will be retained on a confidential basis and will not be disclosed to other members other than on an anonymised basis. 

Guiding principles - What information cannot be shared? 

There are certain areas of sensitive commercial information that should never be discussed between our members, either formally or informally, intentionally or inadvertently, directly or indirectly through a third party. These include: 

• Current or future pricing, or matters affecting prices.   

• Company-specific sales information.   

• Company-specific cost information.  

• Salaries and wages, hiring practices or limitations on hiring a competitor’s employees.  

• Commercial planning or strategy information including geographic growth and business expansion or contraction plans.  

• Key contract terms, such as any matters relating to specific suppliers and customers that are significant to core drivers of market competition. 

• Members must also never reach any agreement or understanding (including tacitly) with any other member on the following:
  • Prices that either company will announce or charge their customers.
  • The timing or method of price increases.
  • Terms of sale or delivery that either company will offer customers.

• Allocating product or geographic markets in which either company will sell or not sell. 

• Allocating customers to which either company will sell or not sell. 

• Bids to any customers, including whether to bid or not to bid. 

• Production, capacity, or sales volumes. 

• Soliciting each other's employees or employee salaries and benefits. 

These types of agreements (cartel agreements) are automatically illegal. There can be no justification; the agreement itself is unlawful. 

Conduct of meetings 

Meetings of the IAB will only be held based on agendas circulated in advance. Minutes will be recorded by the IAB and circulated shortly afterwards. IAB members should only use these minutes and should not make their own records of meetings in any medium. 

The IAB may record video-conference meetings, but such recordings will be deleted after 60 days. Private AI tools may be used by members to generate recordings of such meetings, but any other (non-private) AI tools must not be used and should be disabled before the start of any IAB meeting. 

The chairperson of any meeting will halt any discussion (before, during or after any meeting) of confidential commercially sensitive information, including (without limitation), concerning prices, discounts or terms of trade. 

Queries 

Any questions relating to this statement, or its contents, should be directed to Jane McNeill, Chief Operating Officer of the IAB.  

Any suspected breach of this statement should be reported to Jon Mew, Chief Executive Officer of the IAB.