Code of Practice further tightened to protect advertisers IASH closes the 'blind buy' loophole.

Thursday, 17 July 2008

IASH (Internet Advertising Sales Houses), the committee founded to police the activities of sales houses and encourage best practice, has suspended a member for infringing its Code of Practice and taken steps to further improve standards for buyers.

The unnamed member is sanctioned for failing to take part in the July audits, which breaches sections 8.1.4 and 8.1.5 of the Code:

• 8.1.4 IASH Members who have completed their first audit must thereafter be audited at 6 monthly intervals
• and be open to additional spot audits
• as required.

• 8.1.5 An IASH Member that fails to successfully complete an audit will
• as a minimum
• be referred for a re-audit and can only re-apply for IASH Member status upon the successful completion of an IASH audit.

The decision was taken following a meeting of the IASH committee on 9th July. Under the IASH code this company will not be re-admitted until it passes an ABCe audit.

At the meeting IASH agreed to further raise standards buy closing the loophole that has allowed "blind buying" - the practice of purchasing display advertising across a network by choosing the type of content and consumer demographics to target without knowing the exact websites an ad will appear on - which has led to some ad misplacement via affiliates or exchanges outside of IASH.

IASH has agreed that members buying inventory from other networks will have to obtain a website list of URLs, before using the inventory. This addition to the Code of Practice will be agreed shortly and will be published on IASH.org.uk.

James Aitken, chairman of IASH, said: "IASH is striving for transparency and raising standards. We warned members that we wouldn’t pull punches if anyone broke the Code of Conduct and this suspension clearly shows that we mean business."

"Because ad exchanges are part of the buying process they need to be encouraged to support the spirit of the code. We're talking to all the ad exchanges and discussing how they can become IASH compliant so when an agency or client buys inventory it knows it has been checked."

IASH now lists 28 members.