Google set out to "co-opt the IAB" on ad blocking. Its witness says that is just how the IAB works.

The document is Scott Spencer's June 2024 deposition, filed October 24 in Gannett's antitrust case against Google in the Southern District of New York. Spencer ran product for the DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX, Google's exchange), then Google's Coalition for Better Ads work, then became VP of privacy and user trust. The IAB's own website still lists him as Google's Director of Product Management for Sustainable Ads, working with the Coalition.

Plaintiffs' counsel showed him an email he forwarded to Jonathan Bellack, who ran DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP, the ad server). It concerned the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau, the industry's main trade body) and its proposed response to ad blocking. Spencer testified: "I thought that we could do something better than what they were proposing." The email then says there is a separate thread with Google's official liaisons to industry organizations, and continues: "We are looking to co-opt the IAB. Neal met with [redacted] Tuesday and is confident we will get alignment. Fingers crossed." Neal is Neal Mohan, then head of Google's display ads business and now CEO of YouTube. Asked what "co-opt" meant, Spencer said: "It's a bad choice of terms. I meant that we would convince them that there was a better path."

Then the exchange that every trade body in this industry should read. Asked whether Google drafted external communications "to be sent out by the IAB as if on behalf of the IAB," Spencer answered: "As a member of the IAB, member organizations would commonly draft communications that would then come out from the IAB." Asked whether Google ever deleted references to itself so the IAB would not look like a Google mouthpiece, he answered: "the IAB would know who they were talking to, so the communication may come out from the IAB that was drafted by us or by other members." He did not say no. He said the IAB knows. The reader of an IAB communication does not.

The timeline shows what Google's "better path" turned out to be. In October 2015 the IAB launched LEAN (Light, Encrypted, AdChoices-supported, Non-invasive), and IAB Tech Lab's Scott Cunningham published the "We messed up" paper. That was the trade body's own answer to ad blocking: a voluntary standard, enforced by publishers. Eleven months later, on September 15, 2016, the Coalition for Better Ads launched with Google and the IAB as founding members. The Coalition published the Better Ads Standards in March 2017. On February 15, 2018, Chrome began filtering every ad, Google's included, on sites failing the standard for more than 30 days. Spencer confirms the internal codename, Project Magnolia, and describes it as working "with multiple browsers to block publishers when their ads were not compliant." The IAB proposed a publisher-run standard. Google said it would co-opt the IAB. Google and the IAB co-founded a new body, that body wrote a standard, and Google's browser enforced it against publishers, with Google's Ad Experience Report as the judge.

The same session has a second example of the pattern. In an August 2015 email, Google as a buyer decided to stop bidding on Flash ads in Chrome when the buyer was AdWords or DBM (DoubleClick Bid Manager, Google's DSP), but to "allow Flash ads on Chrome when buyer is AdX, even on AdSense's inventory." The decision was made in a room with Neal Mohan and Spencer. Spencer could not say whether publishers or advertisers were ever told.

For publishers, this is the Gannett case in one exhibit: Google writes the rules, the industry body signs the press release, and publishers pay for compliance. For the IAB, the damage is to the one asset it cannot buy back. OpenRTB, VAST, the Transparency and Consent Framework, ads.txt and sellers.json are built to because the IAB logo means the whole industry wrote the spec. A Google witness just testified that member ghostwriting is routine. The only rebuttal that works is a drafting disclosure policy. For independent SSPs and DSPs, treat IAB policy positions as Google input until the IAB shows its drafting credits. The next round of standards covers agentic buying, AI crawler compensation and post-cookie identity, and the company with the browser, the ad server and the exchange has the same incentive it had in 2015. For Google, this is the familiar win: a standard set by a coalition, enforced by Chrome, judged by a Google report. Each piece is defensible on its own. The email shows how they were assembled.

Our call: no disclosure. The IAB will NOT publish drafting credits for its policy communications in the next 12 months. We expect the IAB to keep sending out member-drafted communications under its own name with no attribution, because the members who fund it are the members who draft. Revisit by 2027-10-27. We are wrong only if the IAB adopts a public policy naming which member organizations drafted or substantially edited its statements.

The document

The document is a transcript of Scott Spencer's deposition, taken June 25, 2024 and filed on October 24 in Gannett's antitrust case against Google. Spencer spent roughly eight years at DoubleClick and fifteen at Google. He ran product for the DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX, Google's exchange), then moved to the Coalition for Better Ads work, then became VP of privacy and user trust. He is the person Google put in front of the industry on "better ads." The IAB's own website still describes him as Google's Director of Product Management for Sustainable Ads who "works with the Coalition for Better Ads."

Near the end of the day, plaintiffs' counsel Vash put Exhibit 30 in front of him: an email Spencer forwarded to Jonathan Bellack, who ran DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP, the ad server). The subject was the IAB's plan to respond to ad blocking. Spencer's testimony on what it says, verbatim from the transcript:

Q. Does this document indicate that the IAB is opposing a charter concerning online advertising? A. This is talking about the IAB looking at the issue of ad blocking and proposing changes in approach to deal with ad blocking. Q. And does the e-mail indicate that you did not like their approach to changes in ad blocking? A. I thought that we could do something better than what they were proposing.

Then the line that should be in every publisher's slide deck. The email says there is a separate thread with Google's official liaisons to industry organizations (names redacted), and continues:

"We are looking to co-opt the IAB. Neal met with [redacted] Tuesday and is confident we will get alignment. Fingers crossed."

Neal is Neal Mohan, then the head of Google's display ad products and now CEO of YouTube. Asked what "co-opt the IAB" meant, Spencer answered: "It's a bad choice of terms. I meant that we would convince them that there was a better path."

Counsel then asked the question that matters for every trade body in this industry:

Q. To the best of your knowledge, did Jonathan Bellack or others at Google ever draft external communications to be sent out by the IAB as if on behalf of the IAB that were, in fact, drafted by Google? A. As a member of the IAB, member organizations would commonly draft communications that would then come out from the IAB. Q. To the best of your knowledge, did anyone at Google ever draft communications for the IAB and delete any references to Google so as to make it look like Google had not drafted the communications? A. In working with the IAB, the IAB would know who they were talking to, so the communication may come out from the IAB that was drafted by us or by other members.

Read that answer again. He did not say no. He said the IAB knows who it is talking to, so the ghostwriting is fine. The reader of an IAB communication does not know. That is the whole point of putting the IAB's name on it.

What the IAB proposed, and what Google replaced it with

The timeline makes the "better path" concrete. In October 2015 the IAB launched LEAN (Light, Encrypted, AdChoices-supported, Non-invasive), and IAB Tech Lab's Scott Cunningham published the "We messed up" paper admitting the industry had wrecked the user experience. That was the IAB's own answer to ad blocking: a voluntary standard, run by the trade body, with enforcement left to publishers.

Google's answer arrived eleven months later. On September 15, 2016, the Coalition for Better Ads launched at Dmexco, with Google and the IAB both as founding members. The Coalition published the Better Ads Standards in March 2017. On February 15, 2018, Chrome started filtering every ad, Google's included, on sites that failed the standard for more than 30 days. Spencer confirms under oath that this had an internal codename, Project Magnolia, and describes it as working "with multiple browsers to block publishers when their ads were not compliant with the better ad standard."

So the sequence is: the IAB proposes a publisher-run standard. Google writes internally that it will "co-opt the IAB." Google and the IAB co-found a new body. That body writes a standard. Google's browser, with over 60 percent of the market, enforces it against publishers, with Google's Ad Experience Report as the judge. The IAB got to co-sign. Google got the enforcement mechanism, the data, and the rulebook.

Why this is the IAB's problem, and every operator's

The IAB's entire value is that a standard with its logo on it is understood to be the industry's standard. OpenRTB, VAST, the Transparency and Consent Framework, ads.txt, sellers.json, Project Rearc: publishers, SSPs and DSPs build to these because nobody wants to build to Google's spec by another name. If the largest member drafts the communications and the trade body sends them out as its own, the logo is a laundering service. Spencer's defense that "the IAB would know who they were talking to" concedes that the only party kept in the dark was the membership and the market.

This is a testimony about the 2015 to 2018 period. The IAB will say process has changed. Fine. Then publish who drafted what. The Tech Lab working groups keep participant lists. The policy and comms side does not publish drafting credits. Until it does, every "industry" position on privacy, on attention metrics, on AI crawlers, on Chrome's Privacy Sandbox successor, carries the same question: whose "better path" is this?

Who wins and who loses

Publishers lose, again. Gannett's lawyers filed this because it shows the pattern: Google deciding the rules and the industry body signing the press release. Publishers absorbed the cost of Better Ads compliance, and the standard also cleared the field for Google's own formats. Spencer's other exhibit from the same session is a 2015 email where Google, as a buyer, decided to stop bidding on Flash ads in Chrome when the buyer was AdWords or DBM (DoubleClick Bid Manager, Google's DSP) but to "allow Flash ads on Chrome when buyer is AdX, even on AdSense's inventory." Different rules for Google's own exchange, decided in a room with Neal Mohan and Spencer, and Spencer could not say whether publishers or advertisers were ever told.

The IAB loses credibility it cannot buy back with a membership drive. Its chief asset is neutrality. A Google witness just testified that member-ghostwritten communications are routine. The IAB can rebut this in one way: a drafting disclosure policy. Anything else is a comms plan.

Independent SSPs and DSPs should treat IAB standards as Google input until shown otherwise. This matters now because the next round of "industry" standards covers agentic buying, AI crawler compensation, and post-cookie identity. The company with the browser, the ad server, and the exchange has the same incentive it had in 2015. The deposition shows it also had the playbook.

Google wins the way it always has. Standard set by a coalition, enforced by Chrome, judged by a Google report. Every piece of that is defensible on its own. The email shows how they were assembled.

The Prediction

Prediction: The IAB will not publish drafting credits for its policy communications before October 27, 2027.

Confidence: High. The members who fund the IAB are the members who draft its communications, and nothing in its governance requires disclosure.

Why: The IAB's revenue comes from the members whose drafts it sends out, so a disclosure rule would cost the body its largest funders' goodwill. Spencer described ghostwriting as routine practice rather than an exception. The one thing that would change this is a regulator or a court making the drafting record public, and the Gannett filing shows one email.

Revisit by 2027-10-27: We're right if the IAB (US) still issues policy statements, standards and public comments with no disclosure of which member organizations drafted or substantially edited them. We're wrong if the IAB adopts and publishes a disclosure policy naming the member organizations that drafted or substantially edited any policy statement, standard, or public comment it issues.

Receipts (transcript page:line)

Point	Where
Spencer's career: DoubleClick VP product, Google AdX director, Coalition for Better Ads, VP privacy and user trust (Nov 2019)	23:23 to 25:11, 34:9 to 35:12, 39:3 to 40:23
Exhibit 30 identified: email forwarded by Spencer to Jonathan Bellack, GOOG-DOJ-13357360 to 363	311:17 to 312:17
"This is talking about the IAB looking at the issue of ad blocking and proposing changes"	312:21 to 313:2
"I thought that we could do something better than what they were proposing"	313:3 to 313:7
Separate thread with Google's "official liaisons to industry organizations" (names redacted)	313:8 to 313:13
"We are looking to co-opt the IAB. Neal met with [redacted] Tuesday and is confident we will get alignment. Fingers crossed."	313:14 to 314:1
"It's a bad choice of terms. I meant that we would convince them that there was a better path."	314:2 to 314:5
"I'm sure there were many communications done to the IAB on behalf or by Googlers."	314:6 to 314:11
"member organizations would commonly draft communications that would then come out from the IAB"	314:12 to 314:20
Asked about deleting Google references: "the communication may come out from the IAB that was drafted by us or by other members"	314:21 to 315:6
Project Magnolia: "worked with multiple browsers to block publishers when their ads were not compliant with the better ad standard"	309:10 to 309:23
Flash decision (Aug 2015): block when buyer is AdWords or DBM, allow when buyer is AdX "even on AdSense's inventory"; decided with Neal Mohan	306:21 to 308:8
Spencer does not know whether the Flash decision was communicated to publishers or advertisers	310:3 to 311:12

PDF page = transcript page + 1 (PDF page 1 is the exhibit cover sheet). Transcript page 313 is PDF page 314.

Public facts used that are NOT in the deposition (verified today):

• IAB LEAN launch and the "We messed up" paper by IAB Tech Lab's Scott Cunningham: mid-October 2015.
• Coalition for Better Ads launch: September 15, 2016 at Dmexco; Google and IAB founding members.
• Better Ads Standards published: March 2017.
• Chrome ad filtering live: February 15, 2018, with the 30-day failing window and the Ad Experience Report.
• IAB.com staff page describes Spencer as Google Director of Product Management, Sustainable Ads, working with the Coalition for Better Ads.
• Neal Mohan is now CEO of YouTube.
• Chrome's "over 60 percent" browser share is a round public figure; cut it if you want the piece to be deposition-only.