This article explains how vendor scanning works in Usercentrics, how detected vendors appear in the Admin UI, and how automatic vendor population can simplify vendor management.
It also explains how this functionality supports TCF transparency requirements by helping maintain an accurate vendor list.
Overview
Managing vendors can be challenging as transparency requirements increase and vendor lists grow over time.
Usercentrics provides an automated scanning workflow that detects which TCF or Google vendors are active on your website and helps you add only those vendors to your configuration.
This approach helps you:
reduce manual vendor management
improve transparency for end users
maintain a lean vendor list
support the requirements introduced with TCF
How Vendor Scanning Works
When you run a scan, we analyze third-party requests made by your website or app. These requests are matched against official vendor information published by vendors themselves, here especially:
Domains/Request URLs used by vendors
e.g. ads.iabvendorurl.com*
If a request detected during the scan matches a declared vendor domain, Usercentrics can identify which TCF vendor is responsible for the detected activity.
Note: Usercentrics cannot guarantee the accuracy of vendor-declared domains. If you notice an incorrect vendor mapping, please contact our Support team so we can escalate the issue to the relevant IAB or Google vendor list owner or remove the vendor from our mapping logic.
What You See in the Admin UI
When a scan detects activity that can be mapped to a TCF vendor or Google ATP vendor, the system replaces generic DPS entries with the corresponding vendor entry.
This ensures that vendor activity is represented according to the vendor’s official declaration.
Displaying vendor hits instead of generic DPS entries allows you to:
rely on the vendor’s TCF declaration rather than declaring the same service twice
avoid duplicate or overlapping declarations in your CMP
keep your configuration aligned with the TCF or Google vendor frameworks
In the Scan Settings section, you can review all vendors and DPS detected during scans and manually assign any unidentified results to the correct declaration.
You can view vendors identified through scans in the following locations: TCF Vendors and Google Vendors.
Use the option "Select all scanned vendors". This allows you to bulk add vendors detected through scanning.
Vendor Auto-Population
Usercentrics provides the option to automatically add detected vendors to your configuration.
This setting is available in: Scan Settings → DPS Management
When auto-population is enabled:
Vendors detected during scans are automatically added to your configuration
You receive an email notification when a scan completes, including a list of added vendors or DPS entries
Manual vendor management remains possible at any time
Note:
If auto-population is enabled, all vendors identified through scanning are added automatically.
Unless the specific vendor can been ignored
If auto-population is disabled, vendors are not added automatically.
Vendors that were added previously are not removed automatically if they are not detected in a later scan.
Why This Matters for TCF configurations
Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), requires publishers to be transparent about the number of vendors used. Large, unfiltered vendor lists can reduce user trust and increase consent fatigue.
By using vendor scanning and automatic population, you can:
Avoid enabling unnecessary vendors
Present a smaller, more accurate vendor list to users
Build trust through transparency and relevance
FAQ
When using TCF or Vendor-based configuration, the goal is typically to rely on the official framework as much as possible. This means you should ideally add a Vendor ID from:
The IAB Global Vendor List (TCF), or
Google Vendors (when applicable)
Both frameworks maintain their own logic and methodology for listing and associating trackers with vendors.
Because of this, Usercentrics tracker mappings are not directly attached to vendor entries within the TCF configuration. Vendor-based configurations follow the official vendor framework definitions rather than Usercentrics' internal tracker mappings.
Yes.
If the scanner detects a specific tracker that you want to declare explicitly, you can find it under:
DPS → Scanner → Trackers
Trackers are mapped to the DPS/Service level, not directly to Vendors. This ensures:
Full visibility of available tracker mappings
Flexibility to manually map a tracker to a DPS (Data Processing Service)
The ability to add a DPS ID where needed
This allows you to maintain granular control even when using a vendor-based setup.
This typically happens because:
Trackers are managed at the DPS/Service level, and
The “Services” view in vendor-based configuration only reflects vendor-level results
In other words:
The Scanner suggests a DPS based on detected tracker behavior.
The “Services” section, with vendor mapping, only displays vendors (not individual tracker-to-DPS relationships).
This separation ensures that vendor compliance logic and DPS-level tracker handling remain structurally independent.
An example is the service "DoubleClick", which is reloaded by default from every YouTube video.
When Autopopulation runs, scanner-detected trackers are handled based on how they are mapped.
- If a tracker is mapped only to a DPS (Data Processing Service):
- The tracker will be autopopulated as usual. It will automatically be added to the corresponding DPS in your configuration.
- If a tracker is mapped to a DPS that is represented by a Vendor (in the “Services” tab):
- The tracker will not be automatically assigned. Instead, it will remain in the To-Do list.
- Relevant tracker declaration of trackers per vendor will instead be consumed by the official vendor framework.
- The tracker will not be automatically assigned. Instead, it will remain in the To-Do list.
In this case, you must decide whether to:
- Ignore the tracker, or
- Manually map it to a DPS of your choosing.
This behavior ensures that Vendor-based configurations are not automatically altered without your explicit confirmation, while still allowing full flexibility at the DPS level.