With an estimated one-third of the U.S. programmatic display ad spend going to the so-called ad tax, the need for transparency is obvious. But a feud over two new IAB tools—sellers.json and OpenRTB SupplyChain object—underscores why transparency will never be possible as long as the industry perpetuates the intermediary blame game.

While the dispute is nominally about technical specifications, the real issue is whether a particular market player—in this case, Google’s exchange bidding—should be considered an intermediary. According to the IAB, Sellers.json identifies a player as either direct or as an intermediary in a transaction, while SupplyChain Object identifies hops, in which a player, such as exchange bidding, is a financial participant that takes a cut or where it simply passes through the impression.

Read the full Adweek article here.