Project Rearc is the IAB Tech Lab’s initiative, aimed at addressing the core challenges and restructuring the global online advertising industry to ensure the balance between personalization and customer privacy.
The Story Behind Project Rearc
IAB Tech Lab introduced Project Rearc in the beginning of 2020, leading a collective digital ad market effort to find efficient solutions and standards that would ensure the feasibility of trusted relationships between publishers and advertisers, while respecting end user privacy rights, in the new, cookie-less realities.
In view of this, the initiative founders expect substantial input from the side of all stakeholders across the digital supply chain to develop and implement industry-wide standards and guidelines of how to improve addressable online advertising & measurement practices in the “privacy-first” environment.
Namely, the organization has created a special Rearc Global Task Force, open for participation for both the IAB members and non-members to provide an effective channel for such input.
More importantly, back in summer of 2020 Project Rearc teamed up with PRAM (Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media) to engage and facilitate collaboration with even more influential industry stakeholders across the globe.
Scope of Tasks
The Task Force members, including publishers, brands & ad agencies, as well as NGOs, policy makers and other industry bodies, are joining efforts to develop and implement the effective solutions for the responsible use of consented identifiers in addressable advertising, including a global Accountability and Privacy platforms.
While none of the working groups is actually developing their own alternatives to third-party cookies, one of their Project Rearc goals, among other things, also implies a thorough review of existing identity resolution proposals & solutions, e.g. Unified ID 2.0.
2021 Project Rearc Updates
On March 9, 2021 IAB Tech Lab released a portfolio of standards and guidelines for responsible addressability, open for comment until April 8, 2021. Two weeks later, the organization also hosted a virtual “Addressability Solution Roadshow” webinar for businesses working in digital advertising to ensure their better understanding of proposed standards.
According to the official announcements, the scope of events and initiatives within Project Rearc also implies multiple themed webinars, along with biweekly Task Force member meetings.
For more information on how to join the Rearc Task Force, please follow the IAB Tech Lab instructions.