In March, the EU adopted the text of a new regulation on political ads, designed to promote transparency and close off the period since 2016 where there’s been significant public and media concern about their misuse.
The ”final” regulation wasn’t very final, serving more as a framework than a specific set of requirements, with much of the detail still to be filled in through administrative, non-legislative work before the planned full implementation in October 2025.
The challenge of this timeframe for the EU was a) getting the legislation through before the EU elections in May/June and b) managing the detail of implementation during a period when a new Commission was being appointed.
Though new Commissioners are now in place, it’s clear that work facing an already-tight 18 month delivery period is now under real pressure.
Citing this, Google decided today was the right time to announce it was going to get out of the EU ad market. It argues that because the precise definition of a political ad isn’t yet clear, it can’t possibly comply in time.
But this should be seen as an obviously political decision by Google, rather than a practical one. There are plenty of steps short of withdrawing from the market it could have taken, such as signalling they felt the deadline was too tight and asking for a slower or phased-in implementation. The chances of them being fined for non-compliance on Day One of the new rules was nil.
But rather than trying to find a way to a mutually satisfying solution, it has chosen to go big instead, and announce it is pulling out of the market. Whether this will be reversed as the regulation better comes into view (making this purely a negotiating play), remains to be seen.
Here’s a grab bag of our immediate thoughts…
This is bad for:
- The Commission, who have moved cautiously on the implementation of the political ad regulation (remember: EU elections earlier in the year and many new Commissioners and remits, followed by new teams and leadership in various Directorates) This left space, even if only accidentally, for this to happen.
- EU legislators, who couldn’t agree on specifics for the regulation, particularly the scope of a ”political ad”, and left it to the bureaucracy to sort it out later on, creating this crunch.
- European political campaigns, who will lose a major platform to run their messages on. This is particularly true for challengers, who will lose an important means to build name recognition with voters.
- A minimalist definition of political ads. Google supported this, as did many politicians and civil society groups who wanted to avoid being drawn into the regulation. However, the de-facto standard is now Meta’s version of ad transparency, which is broader, includes ”issue ads” and is always-on (not just operational during election periods). Did Google misunderstand that it was probably winning?
- Meta, who now become an effective monopolist in this market, with the additional scrutiny that entails. (Though we still don’t know what they will choose to do about the forthcoming regulation. Perhaps they will leave too).
- Voters, who find themselves with fewer places to get political information (you may not love ads, but they’re a way of finding out about elections and campaigns). This is particularly true for younger voters who spend more time online.
- Research, as it will drive political activity to places that are harder to monitor. It will also make it harder to know whether Google is still serving some political ads despite its self-imposed ban.
- Real-time reporting on campaign activity. Google’s transparency tools are far from perfect, but they are nearly-live, allowing quick reporting of what’s being said, to whom and how often.
- Non-EU countries, who should see this as a warning shot against introducing regulations on political ads (and other areas of political speech or news). The platform companies have shown time and again that they’ll pre-empt or retaliate against such measures, up to and including leaving entire markets if they don’t like legislation (see Facebook and news in Australia and Canada).
This is good for:
- People who don’t like political ads. Granted, this is a lot of people, but there are real trade-offs involved that need to be taken seriously.
- Campaigns who get a lot of juice from algorithmic recommendations. This can include incumbents, celebrity candidates, people with existing large followings, people with effective posting strategies and content the algorithms favour.
- Influencers (including podcasters and others with large audiences), who will be increasingly sought after by political campaigns looking to reach persuadable audiences to bypass an ad ban.
- Meta, who now become an effective monopolist in this market, with all the additional money, control and price-setting power this brings.
- X/Twitter, who despite being in free-fall, do offer political ads, and could find their market share grow a little in Europe, particularly on the political right.
- TikTok and Microsoft, who will feel vindicated that they never got into the political ad market at all.
- Those who argue in favour of needing more EU-based services. ”So an American company won’t even try to follow democratically arrived-at European rules? Just proves the point we need our own. Time to build.”
- Policymakers who want to see platforms dealt with more comprehensively. Shutting down one part of the speech of elected politicians could be seen as poking the hornet’s nest. Google’s decision gives them ammunition to go harder – at fines, must-carry rules, efforts to create political balance and so on.
So, as you can see, a single private decision like Google’s has a much wider set of reverberations and consequences.
Who Targets Me has never wanted to see political ads banned, but we do think there should be good transparency laws. We think such rules can help set standards for more companies to participate in the market, ensuring competition, and helping voters get important information about candidates and campaigns. The EU regulation should still be a step in that direction. It won’t make political ads perfect, but it can help make them better.
With their lack of serious engagement with the trade-offs, Google is making things worse. We’ve worked on ad transparency for the last seven years, so clearly this single decision seems significant to us, but we do think there is a wider importance, particularly when it’s coupled to the way the media environment in the US has played out over the last six months.
This week has seen one tipping point in social media, where X/Twitter is being replaced by BlueSky as the best ’live news’ service. Today’s decision by Google may eventually be seen as another, causing European democracies to start to look more seriously at ways of ensuring citizens can access a wide range of political speech online.