IAB's LEAN and DEAL policy meets Google's acceptable ads

There was no love lost at TechCrunch Disrupt 2016 when IAB top brass met Ad Block Plus in a dust up over ad blocking last week. The battle lines were drawn so sharply, IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg refused to shake hands with Ad Block Plus co-founder Till Faida.

We understand why IAB reserved its enmity for just the one company by stating there are over 200 ad block companies to account for. But IAB knows full well Ad Block Plus is the pantomime villain de-jour. With nearly one billion downloads for Ad Block Plus already, you know something's gone wrong. But there is light at the end of the tunnel: both parties agreed everyone in online advertising, from publishers, developers, associations, consumers and advertisers themselves need to get together to work out a solution.

Last year, IAB rolled out its L.E.A.N (Light, Encrypted, Ad Choice Supported, Non Invasive Ads) programme. And earlier this year, IAB also added details on its D.E.A.L (Detect, Explain, Ask, Limit) campaign. This gives publishers a way to engage anyone blocking ads on their sites so the ad industry association has certainly taken concerns on board.

And as Digiday said last week, Google is going to start running its own acceptable ads policy as an adjunct to complement the good work by IAB.

As we know, Google makes about a bajillion per second in ad-revenue. Having a company with the tech, impetus, finances and cojones to define new standards in advertising is a very big deal indeed. Watch this space...