SHARC: the standard meant to replace SafeFrame and MRAID

One expandable ad, built twice. Once for apps, once for websites.

SHARC, the Secure HTML Ad Rich-media Container, is the IAB standard meant to merge both.

Here’s the problem. Rich media ads, the ones that expand, must talk to the page around them. Apps use M-RAID. Websites use SafeFrame. Two rulebooks, so creatives got built and tested twice. SHARC proposed one container. The ad asks it to resize, open a link, or close, and the container approves or refuses. The ad can’t read your page. Tech Lab finalized version one in December twenty twenty-two, and lists it as replacing both. In practice, adoption is hard to find, and the reference code hasn’t changed since early twenty twenty-four.

So keep M-RAID support in your app SDK, and check the SafeFrame setting on your Ad Manager creatives.

Next: DSA transparency in the EU bid stream.