IMA with non-google adserver

[Roberto Ludovico]

Hi. I have a couple question about the usage of the IMA SDK with a non-Google adserver.

Can IMA be used as interface for video ads with non-google adserver? Theoretically response parsing, video playback, events and error pings should be supported seamlessly as long as the adserver adhere to the supported features: VAST, VMAP, OMID, etc.. stated in the Support and Compatibility page: https://developers.google.com/interactive-media-ads/docs/sdks/html5/client-side/compatibility. Is that right for all the IMA client side SDKs (HTML5, android, ios)?

Speaking of data collection and GDPR, will IMA/Google collect any user data when using a third-party adserver? Or does IMA behave as a simple VAST interface without any internal data tracking?

If this is not the right place for this type of questions, can you suggest me other suitable forums or contacts?

Regards

[IMA SDK]

Hi Roberto,

Thank you for reaching out to IMA SdK support. The IMA SDK communicates with Google to load the hosted component of the SDK and to perform viewability and spam tests, regardless of whether you are using an ad manager-based VAST tag. If you use our limited ads feature the SDK does not perform tracking or personalization based on this communication, but the IMA must communicate with Google servers to function.

Regards,

Aryeh Baker IMA SDK Team

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[Roberto]

Hi Aryeh,

thanks for your feedback. I understand that a communication with Google servers must happens to load components.

Speaking of viewability and spam tests, is this tracking used only for technical and troubleshooting purposes? No cookie or user behavior is tracked?

I looked also at the limited ads feature, but i can't understand how this can help in my situation:

• Does this limit the "viewability and spam tests" tracking you mentioned before? Is there any consequence for other VAST pings or OMID tracking?
• For client-side SDK you must use the ltd parameter to trigger a limited ads request, but this parameter is meant for Google Ad Manager video tags and disable some server-side features. Cutting off Ad Manager and its tags and VAST responses, how can this limitation happen? Should i add a ltd=1 parameter in a generic video tag, in order to instruct IMA (directly from the client side) of the limited ads scenario? I expected a counterpart of the GPT setting: googletag.pubads().setPrivacySettings({ limitedAds: true, });

Regards,

Roberto

[IMA SDK]

Hi Roberto,

 

I work with Aryeh.

 

Your issue seems to be more related on Ad server setup than IMA SDK as this limitations are set on the VAST tag itself. IMA only parses the VAST response from the Ad server to deliver the video creative, and does not have anything to do with the settings of the Ad tag. See this docs for reference. You may want to contact your Ad server or the Ad manager support team to ask how this process should go.

Regards,

Michael Angelo Legaspi IMA SDK Team

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[Roberto]

Hi Michael, I digressed from my initial question, i would like to go back to my initial query.

I checked the IMA behavior using a simple setup from the Sample page and a non-Google ad tag. I confirm that no cookies are written with the loading of the IMA3 and during its operation.

I only found some "extra" network request as the following:

https://csi.gstatic.com/csi?v=2&s=ima&puid=1~kql79uhm&c=2254763816953&slotId=1127381908476.5&fb=ima_html5-lima&sdkv=h.3.469.0&mrd=4&aab=1&itv=1&eee=missing-element&bi=missing-id&ccc=1&ccrh=0&ccri=0&ccrs=1&ccru=0&ccrhc=false&ghmsh_eids=44737475&vmfc=3&vhc=0

I guess this is for the viewability and spam tests mentioned by Aryeh.

That's all I needed to know for now. 

Regards.

[IMA SDK]

Hi Roberto,

 

Thank you for coming back to us.

 

With regards to your question, I am quite not sure for the purpose of this:

https://csi.gstatic.com/csi?v=2&s=ima&puid=1~kql79uhm&c=2254763816953&slotId=1127381908476.5&fb=ima_html5-lima&sdkv=h.3.469.0&mrd=4&aab=1&itv=1&eee=missing-element&bi=missing-id&ccc=1&ccrh=0&ccri=0&ccrs=1&ccru=0&ccrhc=false&ghmsh_eids=44737475&vmfc=3&vhc=0

 

Let me raise this to our team and they will respond to you shortly.

Regards,

[Roberto]

Hi Micheal,

is there any update?

Regards,

Roberto

[Roberto]

Hi IMA team,

could you share some details about this?

https://csi.gstatic.com/csi?v=2&s=ima&puid=1~kql79uhm&c=2254763816953&slotId=1127381908476.5&fb=ima_html5-lima&sdkv=h.3.469.0&mrd=4&aab=1&itv=1&eee=missing-element&bi=missing-id&ccc=1&ccrh=0&ccri=0&ccrs=1&ccru=0&ccrhc=false&ghmsh_eids=44737475&vmfc=3&vhc=0

Thank you,

Roberto

[IMA SDK]

Hi Roberto,

Sorry for the delay on this. Your email was escalated to my queue and unfortunately the escalation system seems to have missed the intended notification.

I can't give full details on the purpose of the csi.googlestatic.com request that you mention, as many parts of the functionality of the IMA SDK are purposefully not public, so as to reduce abuse by spammers. I can, however, confirm that no requests made to the gstatic.com domain will store any personalized data or set any cookies.

In general, googlestatic is used for anonymous tracking of aggregate metrics such as load latency.


Thanks,

Greg Schoppe