Prebid Server | Features | Privacy

Mobile ‘Limit Ad Tracking’ flag

If PBS receives ‘device.lmt’ flag in the OpenRTB request, it does the following anonymization:

  • Mask take off the last byte of the IPv4 address and anonymize IPv6 addresses
  • Removes user.id and user.buyeruid
  • Removes the request.device.ifa attribute
  • Rounds the request.device.geo. {lat,lon} to two decimal places

GDPR

Prebid Server host companies and publishers have the ability to control the enforcement activities that take place.

The enforcement strategy changed significantly between TCF 1.1 and TCF 2.0. TCF2 is a more nuanced and stricter policy.

If a Prebid Server host company wants to support GDPR, they must currently register for the IAB Global Vendor List. The user must provide legal basis for the host company to read/write cookies or /cookie_sync will return an empty response with no syncs and /setuid will fail.

TCF 1.1

No longer supported by Prebid Server.

TCF 2.0

If Prebid server determines the user is in GDPR scope, then consent is independently tested for each ‘Purpose’ with different consequences for each:

Activity Legal Basis Required
Responding to /cookie-sync requests Purpose 1 (Device Access)
Setting a cookie on /setuid requests Purpose 1 (Device Access)
Conducting auctions Purpose 2 (Basic Ads)
Passing User IDs into an auction Any Purpose 2-10. User IDs are important for more than personalizing ads - they can be used in frequency capping, building profiles, counting unique users, etc. So Prebid Server should pass User IDs through the auction if any of Purposes 2-10 pass the legal basis test.
Invoke an analytics adapter Purpose 7
Pass the user’s precise geographic information into auctions Special Feature 1

More details are available in the Prebid Support for TCF2 reference and in the Prebid Server GDPR Reference.

Host Company GDPR Configuration

There are a number of GDPR configuration settings that PBS Host Companies must consider:

  • GDPR enabled - Allows the host company to turn off GDPR support. Default setting is enabled=true.
  • Default GDPR applies - How Prebid Server should respond if the incoming request doesn’t have the gdpr flag. (Note: this config is currently called gdpr.default_value in PBS-Go and gdpr.default-value in PBS-Java.)
  • Host company GVL ID - Currently PBS requires the host company to have a GVL-ID or the setting of the uids cookie in GDPR scope will fail.
  • GDPR enforcement flags - for each Purpose
  • Host Cookie TTL - The default expiration time of the uids cookie set in the host company domain should be defined to match what’s in the TCF 2.1 maxCookieAgeSeconds GVL field. (This is the host-cookie.ttl-days setting in both Go and Java.)

The specific details vary between PBS-Go and PBS-Java, so check the version-specific documentation for more information.

COPPA

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a law in the US which imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age. If regs.coppa is set to ‘1’ on the OpenRTB request, the following anonymization actions take place before going to the adapters:

  • Removes all ID fields: device.ifa, device.macsha1, device.macmd5, device.dpidsha1, device.dpidmd5, device.didsha1, device.didmd5
  • Truncate ip field - remove lowest 8 bits.
  • Truncate ipv6 field - remove lowest 32 bits.
  • Remove geo.lat, geo.lon. geo.metro, geo.city, and geo.zip
  • Remove user.id, user.buyeruid, user.yob, and user.gender

CCPA / US-Privacy

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a law in the US. which covers consumer rights relating to the access to, deletion of, and sharing of personal information that is collected by businesses. The IAB has generalized this state-specific rule into a US Privacy compliance framework. If regs.ext.us_privacy is parsed to find that the user has opted-out of a “sale”, the following anonymization steps are taken:

  • Mask the last byte of the IPv4 address and anonymize IPv6 addresses
  • Removes user.id and user.buyeruid
  • Removes the request.device.ifa attribute
  • Rounds the request.device.geo. {lat,lon} to two decimal places

Global Privacy Control

In support of the Global Privacy Control, Prebid Server passes the Sec-GPC HTTP header through to bid adapters. It does not currently take action on this header.

DNT

Prebid Server does not recognize the Do-Not-Track header. The committee determined that it’s obsolete in general and not supported on Safari specifically. We prefer not to implement, test, and document unsupported privacy flags. Prebid Server is not going to make a dent in the overall problems with DNT.

We may reconsider this position if community members provide evidence that the flag is meaningful to their customers or lawyers.

Anonymizing IPv6 Addresses

IPv6 addresses may be anonymized differently for Prebid Server host companies depending on how they’ve configured the server:

  • There’s a setting to mask the network portion of the IPv6 address when anonymization is called for. It defaults to 56 bits, meaning the rightmost 8 bits of the network is removed in these scenarios.
  • There’s another setting to remove a number of bits in the MAC address portion of the IPv6 address regardless of whether it’s a situation that calls for explicit privacy or not. This setting defaults to removing all 64 bits of the MAC address.