An update on political advertising in the European Union
Google supports democratic elections around the world by ensuring voters have access to high-quality and reliable information, protecting our platforms from abuse and providing campaigns with best-in-class security tools and training.
We work closely with governments, advertisers and civil society organizations to support responsible political advertising across our platforms. In recent years, we have invested in industry-leading election ads programs that support user safety and promote transparency.
For example, since 2019, we have required all advertisers wishing to run election ads in the EU to meet enhanced transparency requirements, including identity verification and in-ad disclosures that clearly show who paid for each ad. We have also established disclosure requirements for the use of synthetic or digitally altered content in election ads, maintained a dedicated Political Ads Transparency Report and restricted how advertisers can target election ads. As a result, there is more transparency regarding political ads on our services than there is for comparable television, newspaper or radio ads.
The European Union’s upcoming Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) unfortunately introduces significant new operational challenges and legal uncertainties for political advertisers and platforms. For example, the TTPA defines political advertising so broadly that it could cover ads related to an extremely wide range of issues that would be difficult to reliably identify at scale. There is also a lack of reliable local election data permitting consistent and accurate identification of all ads related to any local, regional or national election across any of 27 EU Member States. And key technical guidance may not be finalized until just months before the regulation comes into effect.
As a result, Google will stop serving political advertising in the EU before the TTPA enters into force in October 2025. Additionally, paid political promotions, where they qualify as political ads under the TTPA, will no longer be permitted on YouTube in the EU.
Throughout the legislative process, we shared concerns about the potential impact of the TTPA and the challenges posed by some of its requirements, but the regulation ultimately failed to provide the necessary clarity and specificity that would have permitted us to comply with its requirements. We have had to make similar difficult decisions to exit political ads in other jurisdictions, including in France, Canada and Brazil, where we have not been able to comply immediately with the specific implementations required by regulations. We will share more information on the exact timing of our policy change in 2025 and will continue evaluating this decision in the future.
We know political ads are a valuable resource for voters to find information and for candidates to share their message, so we regret that we have to take this step. Ahead of any election, people need access to useful, relevant and timely information and we’ll continue to invest in the people, policies, technology, products and partnerships necessary to display authoritative information and tackle disinformation and harmful content across our services.
Making information universally accessible and useful remains at the heart of our mission, and supporting responsible advertising, including political advertising where possible, is a key part of that effort. We believe that affordable digital ads are particularly valuable to smaller campaigns seeking to reach a wide range of voters, and we will continue to engage with lawmakers, business partners, and community groups on this important topic.
