The certification was independently verified by ABC who audited The Guardian’s processes to show how they met JICWEBS’ guidelines to reduce the risk of ads being served against inappropriate content. The Guardian joins the FT and Northern and Shell newsgroups who were certified earlier in the year.
These guidelines are the Good Practice Principles which were produced by the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) – a cross-industry group within JICWEBS.
Richard Reeves, Managing Director at the AOP said: “Premium publishers like The Guardian know the importance of continuously improving standards to deliver the best experience, both for users and advertisers. We need other publishers to follow suit, and we believe this will happen as increasingly advertisers are demanding the JICWEBS brand safety accreditation before buying ad space.”
Hamish Nicklin, Chief Revenue Officer at The Guardian said: "The Guardian has been a leading voice calling for better standards across the industry for brand safety and transparency and working towards a digital ecosystem that works for advertisers and quality publishers. We're pleased to join the DTSG framework as it evolves to provide advertisers with greater clarity about the tools that are available to determine where their advertising spending is delivered. As an active DTSG accredited business, we will continue to work with industry stakeholders to create a more transparent and effective digital ad system."
The Guardian takes the list of companies certified for brand safety to 68 and the number of certified publishers to 13.
