Description of Methodology

WebSpectator
Description of Methodology

This document is a summary of the Ad Serving process and time based measurement metrics
employed by WebSpectator’s. For additional resources beyond the scope of this document,
please see the IAB's Guidelines.

USA (HQ)
100 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica CA, 90401
United States
Phone: (+1) 310 566 0340

Brazil
Avenida das Nações Unidas,
11.541, 14º Andar
04578-907 São Paulo
Phone: (+55) 11 5504 3350

United Kingdom
23 Berkeley Square
London, W1J 6HE
Phone: (+44) 2032 869092

Portugal
Rua Fernando Namora, 4
2º Piso A, Ed. Metropolitan
Business Center
2675-487 Odivelas
Phone: (+351) 21 934 03 22

Contents
Document Revision History ............................................................................................................................... 2
Summary............................................................................................................................................................ 3
What the MRC accreditation means for WebSpectator and Its Clients ........................................................ 3
What is the MRC? .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Scope of this accreditation ............................................................................................................................ 4
WebSpectator Time Based Metrics and Audience ............................................................................................ 5
Audited Metrics ............................................................................................................................................. 5
Out of scope .................................................................................................................................................. 5
Data collection and ad serving process (client initiated) .............................................................................. 6
Sampling methodology .................................................................................................................................. 7
Limitations associated with the measured metrics ....................................................................................... 7
Compound tracking ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Cache-busting techniques ............................................................................................................................. 7
Logging methods ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Limitations and other disclosures around the measured metrics................................................................. 8
Ad scheduling, delivery process and Application provisioning ......................................................................... 9
Filtration methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 9
Data reporting ................................................................................................................................................. 10
Data Retention ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Data privacy ................................................................................................................................................. 10
Pre-release quality assurance procedures .................................................................................................. 12
Reissuance of data ....................................................................................................................................... 12
Terms Used ...................................................................................................................................................... 13
ORTC ............................................................................................................................................................ 13
Throttling ..................................................................................................................................................... 13
Viewport ...................................................................................................................................................... 13
Realtime Audience....................................................................................................................................... 13

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Document Revision History
Document Revision Table
Rev.
A1.0
A1.1

Ref:#WS- 2013-DOM

Date
11/04/2013
19/07/2013

Author
Pedro Costa
Pedro Costa

Description
Initial Availability
Layout change and data reporting review

p.2

Summary
What the MRC accreditation means for WebSpectator and Its Clients
The MRC certification ensures that WebSpectator’s data collection processes adheres to industry-accepted
standards for digital media measurement. The MRC audits and accredits audience, time based and visibility
measurement services to ensure that the advertising industry has valid and reliable methods of measuring
audiences, time and verifiable impressions. This accreditation relies in part on the by IAB’s “3MS
Guidelines” and the “Interactive Audience Measurement and Advertising Campaign Reporting and Audit
Guidelines”. For more information see http://www.measurementnow.net/ and
http://www.iab.net/media/file/US_meas_guidelines.pdf
To merit MRC accreditation, WebSpectator:


Adheres to the MRC’s Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research and the IAB’s Ad Impression
Counting and Auditing Guidelines
(http://www.mediaratingcouncil.org/MRC%20Minimum%20Standards,%20Oct-2008.pdf).





Provides comprehensive information to the MRC regarding all details of its operation.
Conducts its processes and reporting in accordance with representations to its clients and the MRC.
Submits to, and pays the cost of the annual audits of its procedures by CPA firms mandated by the
MRC.

What is the MRC?
The Media Ratings Council (MRC) is a non-profit Industry association established in 1964 composed of
leading television, radio, print and internet companies, as well as advertisers, advertising agencies and
trade associations whose goal is to ensure measurement services that are valid, reliable and effective.
Measurement services desiring MRC accreditation are required to disclose to their customers all
methodological aspects of their service; comply with the MRC Minimum Standards for Media Rating
Research; and submit to MRC-designed audits to authenticate and illuminate their procedures.
The central element in the monitoring activity of the MRC is its system of annual external audits of rating
service operations performed by a specialized team of independent CPA auditors.
MRC audits serve these important functions:


They determine whether a rating service merits accreditation (or continued accreditation)



They provide the MRC with the results of detailed examinations which become the basis for quality
improvements in the service, either by voluntary action or mandated by MRC as a condition for
accreditation, and



They provide a highly beneficial psychological effect on rating service performance. Knowledge
that their work may be reviewed by CPA auditors is a powerful spur for quality work by all field and
home-office personnel of the rating service.

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In addition, the MRC membership actively pursues research issues they consider priorities in an effort to
improve the quality of research in the marketplace. Additional information about MRC can be found at
http://www.mediaratingcouncil.org.

Scope of this accreditation
This certification will incise in the following WebSpectator’s applications and metrics:




WebSpectator for Publishers Realtime Analytics and Engagement Server
o Viewable Impressions
o GTS (Guaranteed Time Slot Impression)
o Premium GTS
o Time Spent
o Realtime Audience
o Unique Users
WebSpectator’s reporting and logging processes related to the above metrics are included in the
audit.

Third-Party components and external processes are excluded from this certification process, unless
otherwise stated as included in the auditing and certification process.

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WebSpectator Time Based Metrics and Audience
Audited Metrics
WebSpectator for Publishers Realtime Analytics and Engagement Server delivers and certified the following
metrics:
 GTS (Guaranteed Time Slot Impression)
 Premium GTS (Single Pageview Guaranteed Time Slot Impression)
 Realtime Audience
 Unique Users
 Pageviews
 Ad Impressions
These metrics are based on the viewability of Ad Units, Banners. However the focus of this document is on
ad GTS (verified impressions of 20 seconds) and Premium GTS (single pageview verified impressions of 20
seconds) measurement and reporting.
WebSpectator uses and extends the metrics presently in development by IAB’s 3MS (Making Measurement
Make Sense) initiative for viewable ads, where at least 50% of the ad has to be inside the browser’s
Viewport and the browser/browser Tab must have focus to count as visible.

Out of scope
The following processes are not in the scope of this accreditation, but internal processes and policies are in
place to prevent the introduction of errors on WebSpectator’s processes:


WebSpectator for Publishers Realtime Analytics and Engagement Server allows the insertion and
usage of third-party ad tags, therefore is important to recognize that certain aspects of the process
that are not under WebSpectator’s direct control and as such not addressed by the MRC’s audit
and accreditation process. For example:
o Data entered by publishers or agencies for the purpose of campaign set up and
configuration. This data has not been subject to audit; users rely on the internal controls
surrounding this process at the organization to ensure the accuracy of this data.
o The choice and timing around the use of specific services external to WebSpectator; such
as Geographical Targeting, CDN Services… and other un-audited functions within the ad
serving system.
o Third-party developed creative content authored by agencies or organizations outside of
WebSpectator’s control.
o Publisher specific functionalities, such as the page auto-refresh features, implementation of
frames and frame busting features, or other unspecified third-party functions.
Administrative and controls surrounding handling of pop-up blockers and interstitials that
can all impact ad-delivery.

Ref:#WS- 2013-DOM

p.5

Data collection and ad serving process (client initiated)
First impression Ads that are served by WebSpectator’s servers are originated by a client request, these
requests can originate from an HTTP request or from an ORTC message sent to our servers. Second print
verified ad requests are originated by the client sending a request trough ORTC.
GTS originated ad requests are sent to the client when that client made a GTS for a set ad unit, through the
collection and delivery of time based status update messages that amount to the 20 seconds. Status update
messages are sent exclusively by the ORTC messaging channel established with the client and our servers.
The following table is an example of a typical WebSpectator Ad Tagging implementation:
Step

#1

#2
#3

HTML Content
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function () {
/*Website unique identifier*/
var wid = '???-???????;

Step Description

function async_load() {
var s = document.createElement('script');
s.type = 'text/javascript';
s.async = true;
s.src = 'http://services.webspectator.com/init/' + wid + '/'
+(+new Date);
var x = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
x.parentNode.insertBefore(s, x);
}
if (window.attachEvent) {
window.attachEvent('onload', async_load);
}
else {
window.addEventListener('load', async_load, false);
}
})();
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div class="YourClassHere wsz" data-pid="9999999" data-fp=”0”>

</div>

Required: Initialization script. This
script downloads WebSpectator’s
client script and other required
scripts (e.g. ORTC, swfobject) and
returns the specific publisher’s
settings. For more information
regarding the WebSpectator’s
initialization script please refer to
2013WS-CLI

Required: Append WebSpectator’s
data attributes and virtual CSS class
to identify an Ad Unit or Tracking
Zone. Or you can wrap this tag
around your existing Ad Unit/
Tracking zone.
In the scenario where the
WebSpectator’s data-fp attribute is
set to “1”, immediately after the Ad
Unit is parsed and identified an Ad
Request is made for that zone.

#4

</body>
</html>

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Sampling methodology
All measured metrics are census based, not sample based; therefore they are not statistical projections of
the data. The measurement methodology is based on the capture and processing of all ad serving events
and time related events activity.

Limitations associated with the measured metrics
Identify the limitations of the metrics (link to more technical document and to a customer disclosure about
the limitations)
Data is not measurable in the following situations:



Where JavaScript disabled in the client browser, effectively disabling all measuring viewability and
time spent functionalities.
Domain Based Ad Blockers, this can lead to false positives where the tracking information is still
served on the client and the Ad creative is blocked by the Ad Blocker. Mechanisms are being put in
place to prevent such false positives.

Compound tracking
WebSpectator does not support group loading of ads. Each ad is loaded and tracked individually. Real-time
based event metrics (e.g. GTS, Premium GTS and Time Spent) can be grouped on the client in a single realtime status update message to optimize resources.

Cache-busting techniques
Through the use of JavaScript WebSpectator includes a random number in the URL for any call made to the
WebSpectator’s ad server services and third-party ad servers services that support cache busting
techniques (macro tags to replace with random number appended as parameter of the URL to make that
URL unique). This prevents the caching of the requests by the users browser or by proxies. Where
applicable no cache headers are also applied (“cache-control”, “pragma” and “expires” meta tags).

Logging methods
WebSpectator uses multiple servers to provide sufficient capacity for its Ad serving and Time measurement
processes, each of the servers is responsible for collecting the data it processed and send its log to a central
repository for analysis and processing. Automated procedures are used to ensure all log files were correctly
processed. Each log file is only processed once. For more detailed information, please refer to WS-2013LOG document.
Alerts are triggered an in case of unusual activity or errors. These events will be analyzed and attended
according to the severity of the event or error raised.
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The following is a description of some of the items being logged and its use in the process:


GTS and Premium GTS



Time Spent



Real-time Audience



Unique Users



Impressions and Page-views

The next list addresses some of the information being logged by our services:
o

IP address: The Internet Protocol (IP) address represents the address of the user making the
request. This is used in the filtering process, including the identification and removal of nonhuman and internal Google traffic.

o

Session Id: Unique session identifier or session token is a piece of data that is used in
network communications (often over HTTP) to identify unique pageview.

o

Context Id: Unique session identifier or session token is a piece of data that is used in
network communications (often over HTTP) to identify unique user (by cookie).

o

User agent: The user agent is a text string sent to the server by the browser providing certain
identifying information about the browser. This is used in the filtering process, primarily to
identify and remove non-human traffic.

o

Date/time: Date and time the request was logged by the ad server.

o

Ad unit: The identifying information relating to the content selected by the ad server:

o

Application Id: Identifies the associated publisher site/application requesting for the ad
placement.

o

Ad placement: Identifies the location of the ad to be placed on the publisher site/application.

Limitations and other disclosures around the measured metrics






Pop-up blockers: Ads delivered via pop-up or pop-under ads may be blocked from displaying by a
pop-up blocker. When WebSpectator ad tags are properly implemented by the publisher, a pop-up
blocker may prevent the ad from being displayed.
Non-Flash browsers: Some browsers and non-desktop devices may not have support for Flash
content, which is an interactive format used for the delivery content and advertising creative. In
these situations, the ad impression would be recorded once the ad tag is added to the DOM of the
page. Therefore, if the user’s browser cannot render an advertisement in the Flash format, the ad
impression will be overstated, unless a backup format is served instead (e.g. backup image instead
of the flash creative).
JavaScript disabled or incapable browsers: Certain older browsers and non-PC devices may not
support JavaScript, and users may disable the JavaScript function on newer browsers disallowing
JavaScript programs and scripts from executing. WebSpectator relies on JavaScript for most of its

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p.8








client side operations. Therefore this limitation blocks most of the processes surrounding Time
Spent and GTS measurement processes and the WebSpectator’s client script will not be loaded.
This does not limit the functionality of basic ad serving capabilities where the delivery of ads on a
first impression HTTP request are served if a noscript tag is implemented correctly.
Ad blocking software: Certain browsers or tools, users have the ability to block content (including
advertisements) based on a set of rules, such as domain from which the content is being
requested. If the ad-blocker blocks both creative and tracking pixel part of the ad, no impact on the
impression and time measurement occurs resulting in accurate counts. However, ad blocking
software that blocks images or content from the creative server, but not the tracking pixel ad
servers, will result in an overstatement if the ad request is processed and counted, but the browser
subsequently prevents the display of the ad creative resulting in overstatement of the impressions
and time based metrics.
Image rendering disabled: Browsers with image rendering disabled will not request images from
our creative servers. Therefore, users in this state will not see the ad creatives (standard image
creative formats). The ad tracking pixel will also be blocked because it is also served as an image
(1x1 pixels) to prevent the overstatement of impressions in these scenarios. But time spent and
GTS and other visibility based metrics.
Auto refresh: Every refresh of the page results in new requests being made to the ad server and
hence additional impressions being counted.
Unable to establish Realtime Connection: When the client browser is unable to establish a
communications channel with our servers. WebSpectator’s Realtime messaging provider uses
fallback mechanisms in order to support browsers with no support for WebSockets and uses an
encrypted channel to prevent certain firewalls from blocking Realtime traffic. For more information
regarding ORCT Realtime messaging framework see:
http://www.realtime.co/solutions/realtimeframework

Ad scheduling, delivery process and Application provisioning
Any changes made in the WebSpectator’s BackOffice regarding campaign management and ad serving
processes can have a delay of up to 5 minutes to propagate in our systems. Regarding the provisioning of
an application (e.g. Website) there could be a delay of up to 30 minutes for any change to be propagated in
to our systems.

Filtration methodology


Ad logs: WebSpectator’s logs are analyzed for invalid events and non-human traffic through
filtration processes to produce valid aggregated logs. Invalid log events are logged separately for
posterior analysis. WebSpectator’s logging processes rely on the integrity of certain fields included
in the requests to be found, complete, and accurate; if any of these fields are missing or incorrect
the log entry is logged and rejected.



Non-human traffic: Non-human traffic including robots, spiders, crawlers, and agents (hereafter
referred to as robots) represents programmatic activity on the website. This activity is comprised of

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p.9

programs crawling, indexing and making requests for web pages on the website and recursively
following the links on the page to other pages within the website, this includes in most cases, the
links to the ads and its tracking pixels. This activity may include system monitoring tools designed
to ensure the website is functioning properly and content indexing or retrieving processes such as
those used by search engines to populate their databases. When a user’s browser or robot makes a
request of a server for content, it typically provides certain data to the web server in addition to
the specific request, including their IP address and user agent. Such information is used to filter out
non-human traffic. In our ad serving process traffic generated by robots is logged and discarded.

Data reporting
Description of the data reporting, reissuance, retention policies used.
Data Reports are available electronically in the reporting area of our BackOffice. Users are able to subscribe
reports to receive them on a scheduled basis in their email.
Data presented in the reports includes all certified metrics, but also includes non-audited metrics such as
clicks, CTR and other legacy advertising metrics.

Data Retention
Data logs of raw data are maintained for 12 months in compliance with best practices and MRC minimum
standards. Processed reporting data is maintained for a period of 24 months.

Data privacy
WebSpectator’s Commitment to Data Privacy Protection
Protecting the security and privacy of your personal data is important to WebSpectator’s;
therefore, we conduct our business in compliance with applicable laws on data privacy protection
and data security. We hope the policy outlined below will help you understand what data
WebSpectator’s may collect, how WebSpectator’s uses and safeguards that data and with whom
we may share it.
Personal data
Through our Web sites, WebSpectator’s will not collect any personal data about you (e.g. your
name, address, telephone number or e-mail address), unless you voluntarily choose to provide us
with it (e.g. by registration, survey), respectively, provide your consent, or unless otherwise
permitted by applicable laws and regulations for the protection of your personal data.
Purpose of Use
When you do provide us with personal data, we usually use it to respond to your inquiry, process
your order or provide you access to specific information or offers. Also, to support our customer
relationship with you:

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p.10



We may store and process personal data and share it with our affiliates to better
understand your business needs and how we can improve our products and services; or



We (or a third party on our behalf) may use personal data to contact you about a
WebSpectator’s offer in support of your business needs or to conduct online surveys to
understand better our customers' needs.

If you choose not to have your personal data used to support our customer relationship (especially
direct marketing or market research), we will respect your choice. We do not sell or otherwise
market your personal data to third parties, except to WebSpectator’s affiliates.
Purpose Limitation
WebSpectator’s will collect, use or disclose personal data supplied by you online only for the
purposes disclosed to you, unless the disclosure:


is a use of the personal data for any additional purpose that is directly related to the
original purpose for which the personal data was collected,



is necessary to prepare, negotiate and perform a contract with you,



is required by law or the competent governmental or judicial authorities,



is necessary to establish or preserve a legal claim or defense,



is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activities, such as willful attacks on
WebSpectator’s information technology systems.

Communications or Utilization Data
Through your use of telecommunications services to access our Web site, your communications
data (e.g. Internet protocol address) or utilization data (e.g. information on the beginning, end and
extent of each access, and information on the telecommunications services you accessed) are
technically generated and could conceivably relate to personal data. To the extent that there is a
compelling necessity, the collection, processing and use of your communications or utilization data
will occur and will be performed in accordance with the applicable data privacy protection legal
framework.
Non-Personal Data Collected Automatically
When you access our Web sites or Affiliated Web Sites, we may automatically (i.e., not by
registration) collect non-personal data (e.g. type of Internet browser and operating system used,
domain name of the Web site from which you came, number of visits, average time spent on the
site, pages viewed). We may use this data and share it with our worldwide affiliates to monitor the
attractiveness of our Web sites and improve their performance or content.
"Cookies" - Information Stored Automatically on Your Computer
When you view one of our Web sites, we may store some data on your computer in the form of a
"cookie" to automatically recognize your PC next time you visit. Cookies can help us in many ways,
for example, by allowing us to tailor a Web site and or services to better match your interests If you

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do not wish to receive cookies, please configure your Internet browser to erase all cookies from
your computer's hard drive, block all cookies or to receive a warning before a cookie is stored.
Security
To protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss or alteration and
against unauthorized disclosure or access, WebSpectator uses technical and organizational security
measures.
Other Web Sites
WebSpectator is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other Web sites.
Questions and Comments
WebSpectator’s will respond to reasonable requests to review your personal data and to correct,
amend or delete any inaccuracies. If you have any questions or comments about the
WebSpectator’s Data Privacy Protection Policy (e.g. to review and update your personal data),
please click on "Contact" and send us your questions and feedback. As the Internet matures, so will
our Data Privacy Protection Policy. We will post changes to our Data Privacy Protection Policy on
our Data Privacy Policy page. Please check our website or your WebSpectator inbox regularly to
keep up-to-date.

Pre-release quality assurance procedures
WebSpectator’s processes and policies include change request protocols and tracking systems:




Changes requested are inserted into our change management tracking system and documented
accordingly. Approved changes are then made and tested using either automated testing tools or
manual testing (e.g. unit testing, benchmarking tests, etc…) as necessary depending upon the
nature of the change. Once all unit testing is complete, a build is produced containing all the recent
changes, which are tested in a parallel test environment. Upon successful completion of the build
test, the changes are rolled into production.
Strong data access policies are put in place to ensure data security. Users access rights are
periodically checked to ensure each user has the appropriate security rights

Reissuance of data
WebSpectator has put in place automated and manual procedures to detect and alert internally of any
discrepancies in the data reports. WebSpectator’s staff will respond to those alerts and take appropriate
corrective actions. In the event of a larger data re-issuance situation, the data reissuance will be handled on
a case-by-case basis.

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Terms Used
ORTC
ORTC (Open Real-time Connectivity) is a secure, fast and highly scalable cloud-hosted real-time many-tomany messaging system for web and mobile apps. Leveraging the HTML5 Web Sockets standard, ORTC
allows a bidirectional permanent link between the server and the connected user, allowing a web
application to broadcast (push) data to a single user or to every connected user when needed, instead of
waiting for the user’s browser to request it.

Throttling
A throttling process is a process responsible for regulating the rate at which application processing is
conducted, either statically or dynamically. WebSpectator applies throttling to the following browser
events: scrolling, resizing in order to eliminate the firing and reporting of residual viewability events (events
lower than 200ms are discarded).

Viewport
A viewport is a rectangular viewing region in the browser. In this case the Viewport is the visible portion of
the browser canvas.

Realtime Audience
Realtime audience is all the users currently connected through ORTC to our Realtime Engagement Servers.

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