
Simplifying the GDPR, CMP and TCF
In today's world, GDPR, CMP, and TCF play a crucial role in shaping the digital advertising industry. Let's try to understand why this is happening and what the magic behind these seemingly complicated acronyms is.
As we know, programmatic advertising is primarily built on data that provides insight into the behavior of internet users, allowing industry companies to show users only relevant ads. But on the other hand, we live in a privacy-first world. According to the laws of the modern world, we are required to use only the information that the user has explicitly agreed to share with us. This raises a number of questions:
- How can we give users the choice to provide or refuse to share their personal data?
- How can we control the further use and transfer of personal information to 3rd party partners?
- What should be done with publishers who violate privacy policies?
- How can publishers protect themselves from potential fines?
- How to choose only trusted monetization partners?
Chapter 1: GDPR
The story began in 2018 when the European Parliament issued a regulation requiring the implementation of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) protocol for anyone collecting and using information about users on the internet. It’s worth noting that a few years later, a similar program was adopted in the US, but only in one state, California, and it was called COPPA. Other countries have followed the example of the European Parliament and introduced similar regulatory standards, such as Brazil. $300,000,000.00—that’s the total amount of fines collected from publishers by European authorities since the implementation of GDPR for non-compliance with its regulations. This, you must agree, is a significant blow to publishers and the programmatic industry as a whole.
Chapter 2: CMP
What should publishers do to avoid fines from European regulators? First and foremost, they need to give their users a choice. To do this, publishers began integrating CMP (Consent Management Platform) solutions: software providers that allow users to decide whether to opt in or out of 3rd party cookies and data collection and provide options to allow or limit data for specific advertising tech vendors.
Chapter 3: TCF
TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework) is an IAB framework that lists Global Vendors who comply with GDPR. It is important for publishers to work with GVL (Global Vendor List) partners to avoid penalties from the government in the EU and California. WMG International (adWMG) recommends that all publishers work only with monetization partners listed in the Global Vendor List. Otherwise, as a publisher, you risk facing fines, which could be presented to you as deductions or intentionally reduced CPMs on your resources.
adWMG is a certified IAB tech vendor (our ID is 959) and TCF compliant (here https://iabeurope.eu/vendor-list-tcf/) . We store and use users’ personal data in accordance with all GDPR and IAB rules. You can fully trust our company with the monetization of your inventory and not worry about GDPR issues that could arise from working with non-TCF companies.
— Maksym Kovalenko, CEO at WMG International.
Summary:
Whether you're a large media holding or a small niche blog, as a publisher, you must connect a CMP. To do this, you can use the services of IAB-certified CMP companies or, for example, if you use Google Ad Manager, enable this feature in the Google Ad Manager settings, and the corresponding script will be transmitted through Google JS tags.
When choosing a monetization partner, be sure to check their presence in the IAB TCF-compliant database; otherwise, you risk facing deductions and losing part of the advertising revenue you’ve earned.
Your team: WMG International (adWMG).


