Meta, Facebook’s parent company, will cease political ad sales and displays in the EU starting October due to the Bloc’s forthcoming Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) legislation. Meta is concerned about the law’s complexity and its impact on personalized advertising. The TTPA requires extensive transparency for political ads, including clear labeling, sponsor disclosure, and consent for data usage.
Meta has announced the decision to stop selling and displaying political ads in the European Union beginning in October. The company stated that the legislation introduces significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties. The TTPA adds substantial obligations to their processes and systems, creating a high level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms in the EU, as mentioned in Meta’s blog post.
Meta considers the EU’s regulations as a threat to the principles of personalized advertising. The TTPA’s extensive constraints on ad targeting and delivery will limit political and social issue advertisers from effectively reaching their audiences. This, in turn, will result in users seeing less relevant ads on the company’s platforms. Despite engaging with policymakers to convey these concerns, Meta faces a tough choice: either modify their services to offer an advertising product that might not be compliant for advertisers and users, or discontinue political, electoral, and social issue ads in the EU. Meta sees this as yet another challenge to personalized advertising principles.
Enacted by the European Commission in 2024, the TTPA enforces detailed transparency rules for political ads. Companies selling these ads are required to clearly label them, disclose the sponsor, the relevant election or referendum, the ad’s cost, and the targeting mechanisms utilized. The law mandates that data collected for political ads can only be used with explicit consent and prohibits the use of sensitive personal data, such as racial or ethnic origin, or political opinions, for profiling.
Google, another major advertising player, has also declared its plan to stop selling political ads in the EU by October. Google highlighted the significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties brought about by the new legislation.
