For years, we’ve listened to members across the industry wrestle with the same frustration: every deal starts from scratch. A lack of consistency slows negotiations, creates confusion, and adds unnecessary friction to every campaign. Everyone had their own version of what “standard terms” meant. Agencies wanted flexibility. Publishers needed predictability. Platforms looked for protection. And when payments lagged, sequential liability often sparked tension. What should have been a straightforward agreement too often turned into weeks of redlines.
Multiply that across every brand, publisher, and platform, and you get an industry buried in paperwork. Then came streaming, retail media, gaming, and digital out-of-home. Add in data clean rooms, consent management platforms, and ad verification partners, and the complexity only grew. The system that powered digital advertising had outpaced the rules that were supposed to hold it together.
That’s when we knew it was time to act.
Why We Needed This
The last major update to IAB’s terms was in 2010, before social, mobile, streaming, and online audio and video changed the landscape, and long before privacy frameworks reshaped how data is managed. There had been no comprehensive update to the IAB Standard Terms and Conditions for Direct Buys of One Year or Less (Version 3.0) since 2010, and the industry had evolved far beyond what those terms could handle.
Over time, agencies developed lengthy addendums to 3.0 to fill in gaps. Publishers became overwhelmed by different nuances and terms across agencies and ad tech providers, especially around clauses like viewability and accountability. Each custom agreement adds more complexity to an already fragmented process. Agencies and marketers continue to spend months reconciling mismatched clauses. Platforms and service providers keep building their own rules, creating new layers of inconsistency. Everyone is still negotiating from scratch.
So, when the opportunity came to modernize the Terms and Conditions, we knew it was time. Not to revise an old document, but to rebuild the foundation of how digital advertising works.
This effort also marked the creation of the industry’s first true General Terms and Conditions. Prior to this, only the IAB Standard Terms and Conditions for Direct Buys of One Year or Less existed, leaving other types of relationships like platforms and service providers without a shared standard.
150 Voices, One Framework
We brought together more than 150 experts from across the ecosystem: lawyers, operators, publishers, agencies, platforms, and ad tech providers.
The conversations were direct, sometimes spirited, but always focused on building something the industry could stand behind. Every clause had to earn its place. The buy side fought for fairness and flexibility. The sell side demanded clarity and consistency. Platforms and service providers needed protection that scaled. At times, it felt like rewriting the rules of engagement for an entire industry.
It quickly became clear that no single set of terms could fit every relationship. Some parts of the industry needed standardization at the core. Others needed room to account for unique business models. That realization shaped our solution: a universal foundation, the General Terms and Conditions, that could anchor tailored addendums for different types of deals.
Our job was to keep everyone focused on one goal: creating terms the entire industry could actually use. They had to be fair, practical, and durable enough to evolve with new channels and business models.
It wasn’t easy, but it worked because people came to the table ready to build, not just to argue. Real progress happens when everyone leans in.
What We Built
The new General Terms and Conditions reflect how digital advertising truly operates. They cover core contractual elements like liability, force majeure, payment term options, confidentiality, and intellectual property, but they also go further, addressing data usage, measurement, and fraud prevention.
The innovation isn’t just in what’s written. It’s in how it’s built.
We created the industry’s first modular General Terms and Conditions:
- A universal core that applies across direct buys, platform deals, and service provider agreements.
- Addendums that tailor specifics for each relationship type, including direct buys, programmatic, platform, or service provider arrangements.
This modular design makes the framework adaptable. As new technologies and channels emerge, the industry no longer has to start from scratch.
For publishers, it means faster reviews and less negotiation fatigue. For agencies and brands, it means speed, transparency, and consistency. For platforms and service providers, it establishes a recognized baseline everyone can build from. And for the ecosystem as a whole, it brings the structure and alignment we’ve been missing for more than a decade.
The Road Ahead
Too many deals have been delayed by legal gridlock. Too many opportunities have been lost waiting for signatures. The General Terms and Conditions are a chance to break that cycle.
Now that the core terms are complete, IAB is focusing on the Direct Buy addendum next, followed by programmatic and platform terms in 2026. As each is finalized, we’ll revisit and refine the core General Terms and Conditions to keep everything aligned.
This is more than a legal update. It is a reset, a new framework for how we work together.
We’ve spent our careers on different sides of the table, but this effort reminded us of what can happen when the industry moves as one. It’s about replacing confusion with clarity, friction with trust, and paperwork with progress.
It took hundreds of people and a year of debate, compromise, and collaboration to get here. But this is what progress looks like: an industry finding common ground and a standard built to last.
