Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Request for Comments: 8107
Category: Informational
ISSN: 2070-1721

J. Wold
Advertising Digital Identification
March 2017

Advertising Digital Identifier (Ad-ID)

URN Namespace Definition

Abstract

Advertising Digital Identifiers (Ad-IDs) are used to identify advertising assets across all media platforms. This document defines the formal Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace Identifier (NID) "adid" for Ad-IDs.

Status of This Memo

This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8107.

Copyright Notice

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   1.  Introduction...................................................2
   2.  URN Namespace Definition Template..............................2
   3.  Namespace Considerations.......................................5
   4.  Community Considerations.......................................5
   5.  Security Considerations........................................5
   6.  IANA Considerations............................................5
   7.  Normative References...........................................6
   Appendix A.  Additional Background Information.....................7
   Author's Address...................................................7

1. Introduction

This document defines the formal Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace Identifier (NID) for Ad-IDs.

Ad-ID is the industry standard for identifying advertising assets across all media platforms (e.g., over the air, online, over the top, mobile, and place based). Ad-IDs are unique codes for each creative advertising asset. Those unique codes are applied to all media.

Ad-IDs are an eleven-character ASCII string except for High Definition (HD) or Three-Dimensional (3D) codes, which have an H or D as the 12th character.

Ad-ID also provides descriptive metadata about the advertisement. The metadata includes the advertiser, brand, product, commercial title, product categorization, and other essential data about the advertisement. The metadata can be retrieved using the unique code.

See Appendix A for additional background information.

2. URN Namespace Definition Template

Using the template in [RFC3406], the namespace definition is as follows:

Namespace ID:

      adid

Registration Information:

Version 1
2016-03-22

Declared registrant of the namespace:

Registering organization:: Advertising Digital Identification, LLC
11020 David Taylor Drive, Suite 305
Charlotte, NC 28262-1103
USA

Contact:

         URL: http://www.ad-id.org/contact
         Email: cs@ad-id.org

Declaration of syntactic structure:

The identifier structure is an Ad-ID that consists of a unique eleven-character string or a unique twelve-character string (video codes only).

This string is divided into three parts:

      1. A four-character alphanumeric Company Prefix, not starting with
         "0"
      2. A seven-character alphanumeric code
      3. An optional one-character Video Format Identifier.
            H - High Definition
            D - Three-Dimensional

The URN representation URN-ADID of an Ad-ID conforms to the following syntax (expressed using ABNF [RFC5234]):

         URN-ADID = "urn:adid:" full-adid-identifier
         full-adid-identifier =
            full-adid-prefix full-adid-code [full-adid-suffix]
         full-adid-prefix = (ALPHA / %x31-39) 3*alphanum
         full-adid-code = 7*alphanum
         full-adid-suffix = "H" / "D"
         alphanum = ALPHA / DIGIT

Examples:

         Standard Definition: urn:adid:ABCD0001000
         High Definition:     urn:adid:ABCD0001000H

Relevant ancillary documentation:

      [SMPTERP2092-1] specifies Advertising Digital Identifier (Ad-ID)
      representations.

Identifier uniqueness considerations:

The Registrar (Advertising Digital Identification, LLC) is responsible for managing the assignment of the Ad-ID and shall ensure its uniqueness by checking the identifier against the list of existing identifiers. In addition, each Ad-ID is associated with a its own unique URN-ADID.

Ad-ID Registrar has assigned "adid" as a unique identifier. It is associated with a single URN-ADID.

Identifier persistence considerations:

The assignment process guarantees that 'adids' will not be reassigned or reused, and the binding between the identifier and its resource is permanent.

These rules apply to this URN namespace.

Process of identifier assignment:

Ad-IDs are generated by the Ad-ID's proprietary registration procedures.

Process for identifier resolution:

Ad-ID URNs are resolved via URN resolvers that are maintained by the Ad-ID.

Rules for Lexical Equivalence:

Lexical equivalence of URN-ADID is defined by case-insensitive string match.

Conformance with URN Syntax:

As specified above, the syntax of URN-ADID is a subset of the URN syntax specified in [RFC2141].

Validation mechanism:

The validity of a URN-ADID can be checked using Ad-ID's web services. For more information on Ad-ID's web services, please refer to the following links:

        http://www.ad-id.org/user-support/faqs/faq-category/web-services
        http://www.ad-id.org/ad-id-web-services-api-guide

Scope:

Ad-IDs are centrally registered, globally unique identifiers of advertising assets that are used worldwide.

3. Namespace Considerations

Ad-IDs are intended for use in Internet applications, where URNs are routinely used to identify audiovisual resources. There is no direct mapping from Ad-IDs to existing URN namespaces.

4. Community Considerations

The primary registrants of Ad-IDs are advertisers and agencies. Ad- IDs can be used by anyone to unambiguously identify advertising assets and retrieve underlying metadata. The primary benefits of its use are providing greater transparency and accountability in the advertising marketplace, helping to eliminate costly errors associated with the inconsistent use of advertising-asset identifiers throughout the advertising supply chain, and enabling a more granular audience measurement across multiple platforms.

5. Security Considerations

This document specifies the syntax of the Ad-ID URN namespace and makes no security representations. However, note that failure to conform to the syntactic and lexical equivalence rules specified in [RFC3406] when using an Ad-ID as a criterion for accessing restricted resources can result in granting unauthorized access.

6. IANA Considerations

This document defines "ad-id" in the "Formal URN Namespaces" registry.

7. Normative References

   [RFC2141]  Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, DOI 10.17487/RFC2141,
              May 1997, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2141>.
   
   [RFC3406]  Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom,
              "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition
              Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, DOI 10.17487/RFC3406,
              October 2002, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3406>.
   
   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
              Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, DOI
              10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.

[SMPTERP2092-1]

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, "Advertising Digital Identifier (Ad-ID) Representations", SMPTE RP 2092-1, April 2015.

Appendix A. Additional Background Information