The Digital Services Act, Online Platforms and Advertising

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a European Union regulation that entered into force on February 17th, 2024. It applies to any intermediary services and platforms offered to a European Economic Area (EEA) audience, which means that companies established outside of the EEA may also be subject to this regulation.  Article 26 of the DSA regxulation contains transparency obligations for ads on Online Platforms. With each ad an Online Platform presents to an end user, it must provide the following information: 

• An indication that the ad is indeed an ad.
• The identity of the advertiser.
• The identity of the party that financed the ad, if it differs from the advertiser.
• Information about the “main parameters” used to select the ad presented to the end-user.
• Where applicable, information about any means users may have at their disposal to change those main parameters. 

Equativ’s support of the Digital Services Act

Equativ itself is not an Online Platform under the DSA and Equativ is not able to assess if a publisher working with Equativ must consider itself an Online Platform. It is each publisher’s responsibility to consult with their legal counsel to assess if they are an Online Platform and if and how the DSA applies to them. Equativ’s role is to: 

• enable publishers, or any supply side entity to whom the DSA regulation applies, in declaring their needs of DSA transparency information and to provide them with the information so they can make it available to their end users. For this purpose, Equativ is compliant with the IAB DSA Transparency specification which establishes a common framework for all stakeholders involved.
• provide tools for rendering DSA information, so publishers can easily present it to their end users (more details in section “DSA transparency data rendering” below.

DSA Transparency by integration type

Equativ has adopted the IAB’s DSA Transparency specification for the publisher integration types below - more integration types will follow soon.  

DSA Transparency in open RTB integrations (Server Side Bidding)

In open RTB integrations (Server Side Bidding) integrations, Equativ supports the full DSA Transparency specification: suppliers can send the according fields in bid requests and receive DSA Transparency information in bid responses. The related documentation has been updated with all the new fields:

• Open RTB API integration: bid request specification (1) 
• Open RTB API integration: bid response specification

DSA Transparency in prebid.js integrations

In prebid.js integrations using Equativ’s adapter, publishers must enable the DSA module on prebid.js and can start sending DSA Transparency information to Equativ’s adapter in the format of the open RTB DSA Transparency specification. Likewise, Equativ will return the transparency information in the format specified by this specification (see Sample OpenRTB 2.6 Bid Response with DSA transparency).  

DSA Transparency in smart.js integrations

Publishers using Equativ’s smart.js library to request ads can declare their DSA transparency needs using the sas.setDsa function. Read section "Digital Services Act (DSA) transparency data" in Tagging guide: advanced operations for more details.  

DSA Transparency in POST Ad API integrations

To request DSA transparency data in Ad API integrations, see the descriptions of the DSA parameters in the POST Ad API integration: parameter reference. Note that DSA parameters are supported in POST Ad API integrations only. They are not supported in GET Ad API integrations.  

DSA transparency data rendering

To comply with the DSA’s article 26, Equativ supports publishers in rendering the DSA transparency information on their websites (more details about article 26 in section “The Digital Services Act, Online Platforms and Advertising” above.  

Ads powered by Equativ

You can make a question mark icon (“?”) appear in the top right corner of programmatic ads. When website visitors hold their mouse over the icon, the label expands, to show “Ads powered by E”. To display this icon, enable the Creative feedback parameter, available in the direct/RTB versions of the following creative templates:

• Advanced banner
• Classic banner (web) 
• Commercial break 
• Easy Native 
• Floor  
• In-image 
• In-read (web) 
• Interstitial (web) 
• Native (RTB) 
• Parallax (web) 
• Sitebar 
• Skin 
• Slideshow + thumbnails 
• Tower
• Video floor 
• Video header (web) 
• Video interstitial (web)
• Video skin 

This Creative feedback parameter will soon be available in more creative templates. If you do not want to display the “?” / “Ads powered by E”  button at all:

• edit your insertions
• go to the Creative template section
• click Parameters
• expand the Button options section
• disable the Creative feedback option

Once the website visitor clicks on the “Ads powered by E” button, additional options are displayed on the ad:

• only a Send feedback button is displayed, if the publisher is not required to render DSA transparency information; this is the case, when the ad request from the publisher either passes no DSA related parameters at all or if it passes the dsarequired parameter set to “0” (“Not required”)
  • a Why this ad? button and a Send feedback button is displayed, if
    • the publisher is required/intends to render DSA transparency information; this is the case, when the ad request from the publisher passes the dsarequired parameter set to “1”, “2”, or “3”  and 
    • if DSA transparency information has been made available by the advertiser

Why this ad?

The Why this ad? button redirects to the Why this ad? page where the following DSA transparency information is displayed:

• the advertiser on behalf of whom the ad is displayed
• the entity that paid for the ad, if it differs from the advertiser
• a description of what the ad is based on; the description is a dynamic text that is compiled based on the characteristic of the given ad; it is composed of at least one of the following sentences:
  • The information on the website you are viewing.
  • The information about your demography.
  • General factors about the placement of the ad (ex. website, app etc.)
  • The information about your IP address and general geolocation data like country, region, city etc.
  • Information provided by the website owner from the browser like User agent, URL etc.
  • The information on your precise geolocation.  

The DSA transparency information shown on the “Why this ad?” page is intended to meet the obligations stated in Article 26 of the Digital Services Act (see section “The Digital Services Act, Online Platforms, and Advertising” above).   

Send feedback

The Send feedback option allows users to provide feedback which is then sent to Equativ. The feedback options include:

• The ad is covering the page content
• There is no ad shown here
• The ad is inappropriate
• The ad is malicious
• I am not interested in this ad
• This ad is not appropriate for my age

Equativ’s quality team evaluates the provided feedback and reaches out to publishers in case of recurring issues related to specific websites/ads/brands etc. Reach out to your contact at Equativ for more details on which actions Equativ can take in case of repeated negative feedback.