It may have taken some time, but now ad tech platform operators can sell advertisers on identifying the proportion of their ads actually viewed by humans with a degree of industry backing, says one such operator.

“The MRC (Media Ratings Council) and IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) have now defined a standard,” says BrightRoll‘s marketing operations VP Tim Avila. “We now finally have a definition of what ‘viewable’ means.”

On the last year, a hot topic has emerged out of the increasing realization that some unscrupulous publishers are gaming advertising by auto-playing or hiding ad-toting video windows that may by loaded on pages but are not necessarily viewed in users’ device windows.

Whilst viewability ad tech vendors have made gains in that period, the IAB in March 2014 resolved to define “viewability” as requiring “minimum of 50 percent of pixels in view for a minimum of 1 second”.

Avila tells Beet.TV: “We’re finally able to make some smarter decisions and make the right kind of buying decisions for clients.”

He was interviewed at the BrightRoll Video Summit. You can find more coverage of the BrightRoll summit here. Disclaimer: BrightRoll sponsored Beet.TV’s coverage of the event.