§ 5.2 — App identity on properties (#15)

[Sirajmx]

Draft. Do not merge until the working group confirms the disposition of #15.

What this changes

§ 5.2 properties can now identify apps as well as web domains. Each property in properties.available[] may carry apps[] with platform, bundle, storeurl and domain, keyed as the OpenRTB 2.6 app object where one exists. Each property MUST carry domains, apps or both. A note states that seller authorisation for an app is checked through app-ads.txt on its developer domain. The CTV example now carries an app identity.

Related issue

Refs #15

Type

• Editorial — no normative effect
• Normative — changes what the spec requires
• Breaking — would break an implementation already built to this draft
• Examples / schema / docs only

Checklist

• The body section is updated
• Appendix A (field index) matches the body — no new top-level field; apps sits inside properties
• Appendix B (fields by marker, and the counts) matches the body — unchanged
• Any affected example in examples/ is updated and still parses
• RFC 2119 keywords used deliberately — MUST / SHOULD / MAY are not synonyms
• The no-inheritance rule (§ 2) still holds
• Anything selectable declares available[] and included[]; anything settable declares bounds (§ 3.1, § 3.2)
• No confidential or commercially sensitive content

Knock-on effects

• domains is no longer always present. A consumer that assumed it was must handle a property carrying only apps.
• OpenRTB: bundle, storeurl and domain map directly to the 2.6 app object. platform has no OpenRTB equivalent.
• Related to OQ-7 (OQ-7 — environments[] needs validation against real inventory #8): app_mobile and ctv can't be validated against real inventory without an app identity.

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[fgranata]

This shape works for us — bundle + platform is exactly how we key app inventory, and aligning on the OpenRTB 2.6 app object is better than the new names we proposed.

One suggestion on domain: the text says seller authorisation is checked through app-ads.txt on the developer domain, but domain is OPTIONAL, so a buyer has nothing to run that check against when it is absent. Consider "SHOULD be present; REQUIRED when the seller claims app-ads.txt authorisation for the app" (or simply SHOULD).

[Sirajmx]

Thank you. Agreed: without domain, a buyer has nothing to run the app-ads.txt check against.

We have updated the PR to make domain RECOMMENDED (SHOULD, in RFC 2119 terms) rather than OPTIONAL. We kept it at RECOMMENDED rather than a conditional REQUIRED, as the object has no field in which a seller claims app-ads.txt authorisation, so the condition could not be checked. A buyer can still fall back to the developer domain in the store listing (storeurl) when domain is absent.