Ads.cert

Also known as: Authorized Digital Sellers

An IAB-led initiative designed to reduce certain types of ad fraud and arbitrage in programmatic advertising. Ads.cert functions as an upgrade to ads.txt — another IAB project that aims to reduce fraud and improve transparency in the programmatic ad-buying process.

Where ads.txt establishes a list of authorized sellers for a publisher's inventory, ads.cert goes further by introducing cryptographically signed bid requests. This mechanism authenticates a publisher's inventory at the bid level, allowing buyers to track the path that inventory has taken through the supply chain and verify they are purchasing only from authorized sellers.