This glossary provides short definitions of the terms used during this project.
These definitions will not necessarily align with the definitions in various pieces of legislation, as that is not their purpose. Instead they are intended to help readers understand the outputs and translate them into their own context.
Advertiser
An organisation that pays for adverts to be published.
Contextual advertising
Advertising that is placed on a webpage because of a combination of its content (eg "sports"), context (eg "a specialist sports website"), and the aggregate behaviour of people who visit that page.
This type of advertising does not use data about individuals to target adverts at them. There are other alternative advertising models that do not use personal data.
Consentful
A consentful experience is one where people give permission, both individually and collectively, for how the experience is designed and used.
Under data protection law individual consent needs to be meaningful with people having sufficient knowledge, information and time to make a valid decision.
Collective consent can come through more participatory or democratic processes such as co-creation of services, consultations or legislative rules created through democratic processes.
Data-minimising
A data-minimising experience collects, shares and uses the minimal data necessary to deliver a product or service in a way that meets user needs, organisational goals, and provides legal compliance.
Digital proof
A digital proof is a digital artefact stating that an activity happened. For example, the activity might be a consent decision, a piece of data being shared between two organisations, or an advert being published.
Digital proofs typically use cryptographic techniques and verification methods to make them sufficiently trustworthy that people will use them.
Direct marketing
Marketing targeted at individuals. Direct marketing may take various forms such as letters, emails, personalised adverts, or personalised promotions within an online store.
Intermediary
An organisation that helps coordinate activity between publishers, platforms and advertisers.
Within the definition of intermediaries are various types of firms such as:
- Ad Exchanges, such as Google AdX and Meta.
- Data Management Platforms (DMPs), such as Experian or in-house tools developed by advertisers or publishers.
- Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), such as RevX or EXADS.
- End-end alternative advertising providers, such as Kobler or Opt Out Advertising.
- Sector-specific intermediaries, such as SuperBiz and Bidstack.
- Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) such as Automatad or Sharethrough.
Online advertising product
A product that helps advertisers reach their audience through publishers. These products might be provided by platforms, intermediaries or publishers.
Many of the design choices for the moments/prototypes created by this prototype will be decided on and implemented by teams responsible for online advertising products.
Personalised advertising
Advertising that is personally targeted at individuals using personal data.
Publisher
An organisation that publishes content and adverts.
This is a deliberately broader definition than some definitions of publishers. In our work we considered publishers in multiple categories including newspapers, social media platforms, gaming sites, retail firms, and financial service providers.
Publisher back office
The back office systems and processes within a publisher.
Real-time bidding (RTB)
The currently dominant online advertising model where website publishers offer the opportunity to provide adverts to individual users as they view a page. In response to this offer a large number of advertising intermediaries then bid to provide an advert based a combination of requirements from advertisers and data they have collected about those individuals.
RTB depends on large volumes of personal data being collected, shared and inferred about individuals. This data collection, sharing and inference is typically non-consented and is mostly invisible to users.
Responsible advertising
By responsible advertising we mean advertising experiences that are consentful, transparent, rights-enhancing and data-minimising.
Other definitions of responsible advertising include topics such as age-appropriate or illegal content. Our scope and definition did not cover these topics.
Rights-enhancing
In a rights-enhancing experience people are assured that a service respects and enhances their human, digital and data rights.
These rights will be described in multilateral agreements, for example the UN Declaration of Human Rights, or national legislation, for the example the data rights in the UK GDPR.
Transparency log
A transparency log stores records of activities so that they can be checked by third parties.
Transparency logs are used to provide strong levels of confidence that an activity occurred. For example banking transactions, access to healthcare records, or the issuing of website security certificates.
Transparent
In a transparent experience people have the tools and information to understand the purpose and structure of the service, underlying technology and data infrastructure, and how decisions and claims are made.