A Big Week for Universal IDs

UID 2.0 Now Open Source through IAB Tech Lab and IAB Canada Releases Guide to Unified IDs  

The source code for UID 2.0 has officially landed at IAB Tech Lab. This week, the developer of UID 2.0, The Trade Desk,  announced that they are contributing their source code to technical working group of PRAM, led by IAB Tech Lab, supporting ongoing collaborative development by the industry.  

In the Trade Desk’s media release, IAB Tech Lab states “The Trade Desk open-sourcing UID 2.0 for continued industry collaboration is an important step as we develop a portfolio of addressability, privacy, and accountability solutions. We’re looking forward to helping this open ecosystem evolve, while pushing towards new privacy norms. UID 2.0’s current design incorporates security, transparency, control, interoperability, and auditability, which fits well with our addressability work to date and sets a benchmark for solutions both open and proprietary.”  

Here are some key takeaways from this announcement:  

  • The industry now has full ownership over the ongoing development of UID 2.0, as interoperable infrastructure to aid in proprietary innovation and industry growth.  Anyone can propose updates and changes to add functionality to support the project.
  • IAB Tech Lab’s Addressability Working Group and Privacy Rearc Commit Group will guide the technical development of UID 2.0. – IAB Canada is actively participating in these meetings.
  • Prebid.org will remain one of multiple UID 2.0 “Operators,” which create ID tokens under UID 2.0’s design.  

At IAB Canada’s State of the Nation this week, we were so fortunate to have the Trade Desk’s Bill Michels, Google’s Chetna Bindra and Teads’ RJ Pauloski participating in a fulsome discussion on the future of addressability with a focus on UID 2.0, the Google Privacy Sandbox and Contextual targeting. The three presentations made clear again, that this trio of emerging methods of addressability will each have a significant role in the future of digital advertising.

As we continue to tool-up our industry for cookie independence, these types of discussion and other IAB Canada resources become critical for all stakeholders to be prepared. Today we are thrilled to release our latest guide in our Moving Towards Cookie Independence series entitled “IAB Canada’s Guide to Authenticated Audiences/Universal IDs”. You can find this and all other supporting material here.