Google said it will join once it has resolved technical and policy details so parts of its ad tech can operate with the framework.

“We absolutely want to be a part of the IAB framework. We plan to register,” Scott Spencer, Google’s director of product management, told AdExchanger.

There are still important, unknown details – like how long before Google resolves its discrepancies with the IAB, whether Google will integrate its DoubleClick Bid Manager DSP but not its DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) supply and whether Google will join only as a vendor or incorporate its consent opt-in service, Funding Choices, as an IAB-registered consent management platform.

Regardless, adding Google to the Transparency and Consent Framework roster is a critical next step for the effort, which otherwise is isolated from Google’s reserves of inventory and demand.

Google has partially collaborated with the ad tech industry on GDPR compliance. The company is a member of the Transparency and Consent Framework steering committee. It also connected its privacy-centric first-party data and reporting service, Ads Data Hub, with vendors like Adform and Sizmek.

But some in the industry have been concerned Google is using GDPR as cover to gain competitive benefits, such as by restricting the DoubleClick ad ID to Google’s platform and tamping down the number of outside vendors DFP publishers can functionally employ for data-driven advertising. If Google kept its tech stack separate from the IAB Europe’s framework, it would deliver another blow to ad tech competition.