Prebid changes auction scheme: ad servers will enter Prebid
After the court's decision, Prebid writes the rules itself: ad servers will submit bids to its auction, not the other way around. This effectively separates AdX and GAM.
Prebid is preparing an overhaul in the architecture of programmatic auctions: instead of the current scheme, in which Prebid enters ad servers with bids, ad servers will themselves enter the Prebid auction.
The reason was a decision by a US federal court. Last month, the court ordered Google to integrate with Prebid, but did not specify how exactly to do it. Prebid decided to write the instructions itself.
What does the new scheme change?
Currently, the mechanism works as follows: Prebid (a set of open technologies for header bidding — that is, auctions for ad impressions before approaching the ad server) collects bids and passes them to the ad server. The ad server conducts the final competition and determines the winner.
The proposal reverses the direction of the flow. Now the ad servers themselves must submit bids to the auction. For the market, this means a fundamental separation of two Google products — the AdX exchange and the Google Ad Manager (GAM) platform, which currently operate as a single loop.
The court did not achieve such a separation. Prebid proposes to do it through technical means.
Why does the market need this?
The key issue in the antitrust case is a conflict of interest. Google owns both the AdX exchange and the GAM server, which determines the auction winner. Critics have pointed out for years: seller and judge in one — this is a structural problem that cannot be solved by cosmetic measures.
The new scheme changes the balance. If ad servers enter Prebid, rather than the other way around, the auction gets a neutral venue. The meaning is simple: the bidding is conducted by an open party, not by a division of one of the participants.
What's next?
Prebid has already shown a preliminary version of the proposal to the audience and continues to work on the document. The path to the final version is not short: the community must agree on technical details, and Google must effectively decide whether to accept such a design.
The court set the framework, but not the mechanics. The mechanics are now being written by Prebid — and this changes the balance of power in the debate about the future of the open ad web.
Author: Sergey Melnik
Source: AdExchanger
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