Tech Lab Trusted Server

Last updated: March 20, 2025

Proof of Concept prototype now available for Publisher testing

Tech Lab Trusted Server is an open-source initiative providing Publishers on the open web with privacy first control over their monetization that is independent of browser APIs and signal loss.

We are actively seeking Publisher partners to test the prototype and help define the roadmap. Submit here to join the Trusted Server Task Force.

Trusted Server enables publishers to manage ad requests, auction execution, and creative delivery entirely in their own server-side framework—removing reliance on third-party tools that browsers continue to restrict. Key features include:

Server-Side Ad Requests: Eliminates client-side dependencies and mitigates ad-blocking threats.
Prebid Server Integration: Executes programmatic auctions with existing SSP partners within a controlled publisher environment.
Edge Cloud Processing: Securely captures and processes data signals while improving page performance.
Server-Side Ad Stitching: Ensures a simple, first-party content experience while maintaining monetization opportunities.

The Trusted Server roadmap outlines robust support for third-party plugins. This plug-and-play approach facilitates seamless integration with fraud prevention, brand safety, identity solutions, and measurement partners without disrupting existing operations.

Why did IAB Tech Lab Launch this Initiative

Given the privacy related changes made and proposed by top browsers, it is clear that client side ad technology dependent on third party code execution on the client side cannot be sustained as it stands today.

Browser based telemetry is tending to zero: Ongoing and proposed changes will steadily diminish user agent surface area and third party signals severely impacting traditional ad monetization models and yields.
Need for better publisher controls: Publishers need better control and security over their user’s data and what happens on their website.
Ad blocking is not going anywhere: Ad Blocking rates continue to rise worldwide and eat into publisher revenues.

There is a need for a new approach that is resilient to these changes and puts publishers and advertisers in more reliable and predictable control.

The Trusted Server does just that – moves advertising functions to the server side and enables execution of third party functions and code in the context of the publisher’s domain, including

Managing Ad Request and Ad Response
Server Side Ad Stitching
Prebid server integration
Edge Cloud initiation and data signals collection
Plugin support for 3P providers for identity and audience, fraud prevention, brand safety and others)
Plug and play into existing programmatic systems (no changes needed beyond publisher)

Preserve critical advertising functions and improve others

The Trusted Server approach will preserve all critical advertising functions by keeping all entity relationships and reply on fast edge compute infrastructure to improve upon existing benchmarks.

Better publisher controls and security over user data
Consolidation of available data signals while maintaining compliance with privacy regulations and policies
Enhanced page performance and user experience
Minimal disruption to existing programmatic workflows (e.g. direct connections to existing SSPs via an enhanced prebid server implementation
Trusted, verifiable open-source implementation for publisher and industry adoption

How will Trusted Server accomplish this?

Moving these advertising capabilities from the client to the server seems like a significant undertaking, but it does not need to happen all at once. Our modular approach ensures a smoother transition with steps such as:

Ensuring clear server-to-server API definitions and configuration standards on well-known, large-scale Edge Cloud providers
Minimize loss of client-side fidelity loss by capturing and storing all available signals at the Edge
Ensure compliance with privacy regulations and data governance policies

Trusted server design ensures a plug and play architecture to enable third party services and plug into the existing programmatic supply chain with least disruption.

Core services: Edge Cloud application with bid routing (prebid server integration), ad stitching, logging, security, key value store for signals and services support
Addressability: User Identity and Audience services
Privacy: CMP vendors enablement and GPP string support
Ad Fraud Prevention: Prebid inspection by third-party fraud prevention vendors.
Brand Safety: Prebid evaluation by third-party brand safety vendors
Measurement Enablement: Enabling third-party measurement within a first-party context.

Trusted Server Architecture v0.0.2 Overview

Below is a high level architecture diagram of how the different components of the Trusted Server architecture interact. More detailed architecture diagrams can be found in the code repository.

Project Phases

There are 3 phases to the Trusted Server project.

Proof of Concept (POC) – Now available – This phase is meant to demonstrate capabilities and open up ideas of what is possible with Trusted Server and its core concepts. We will continue to develop features, integrations, and use cases alongside the community
MVP Release – The set of features that the Task Force deems necessary to deploy in a Publisher environment
Ongoing enhancements and releases

The table below shows some of the expected features and estimated project phase. This will get further updated and refined as the Task Force begins their work and the industry responds and starts testing in real world scenarios.

Project Phase	Goal	Features	Status
Proof of Concept	Demonstrate capabilities and open up ideas of what is possible with Trusted Server and its core concepts. We will continue to develop features, integrations, and use cases alongside the community	Send Ad Request to an Exchange Receive and process response Stitch the ad into the page Serve the Page and Ad	Ready for Publisher Testing
MVP for Publishers	Enable Publishers to start running a %age of their inventory through the Trusted Server pipes	Addressability and Privacy Display, Native, Video creative types ID providers, Audience providers Server side tagging	In Progress
Future enhancements and Releases	Further build out the Trusted Server ecosystem, integrating more partners and features.	Ad Fraud (Signals for ad fraud (IP address, TLS JA3) and plugin for ad fraud providers to execute their code and return result to core service) Brand Safety (Prebid brand safety evaluation by brand safety vendors and return result to core service, send result in bid request) Measurement (Enable server side measurement events redirect by publisher based on client side user actions) Other features prioritized by Task Force	Prioritization and scope to be determined by the Trusted Server Task Force. Sign up today.

We welcome feedback on the Proof of Concept, MVP definition and other criteria like security, optimization, performance, data storage, prioritize edge cloud versions (Akamai, AWS etc.) and any other essential publisher side function which we may have missed in the roadmap above by joining the Trusted Server Task Force.