A lengthy and complex decision was recently handed down in Belgium by the local data protection authority, in relation to the legality of the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (IAB TCF as it's otherwise known). There are implications in the decision for a wide range of entities, from websites and publishers, to adtech vendors and the IAB itself, and also for users who interact with consent management platforms in their daily lives.

Given the complexity of the judgment, many have been left wondering what they actually need to do now in terms of next steps, and some of the headlines in relation to the decision haven't helped. 

What we've learned from some consent management platforms so far is that they aren't making any immediate changes to their own systems until we see proposals from IAB Europe on the changes they plan to make to the TCF - we think this 'wait and see' approach will become the most popular in the short term until there is more certainty as to the future of the TCF.

In this article, we take a look at what the decision does and (more importantly) does not say.