With 433 votes in favour, 61 against and 110 abstentions, the House expressed its support for the negotiating position proposed by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee. The plenary endorsement gives the go ahead to Parliament’s lead negotiator, Sandro Gozi (Renew, FR) to begin talks with representatives of the member states to agree a text in time for the 2024 European elections.

Restricting targeting strategies and a de facto ban on micro-targeting

Under the changes made by MEPs to the Commission’s proposal, only personal data explicitly provided for online political advertising can be used by advert providers. Micro-targeting, a strategy that uses consumer data and demographics to identify the interests of specific individuals, will therefore not be possible.

Parliament introduced other provisions to further regulate the broader activity of targeting, such as a blanket ban on using minors’ data.

Tackling interference from abroad

MEPs propose non-EU based entities be banned from financing political advertisements in the EU. To determine where such an entity is established, the relevant authorities should take into account where the ultimate controller of this entity is located.

Greater transparency

MEPs also made significant changes to ensure that citizens, authorities and journalists have easy access to information on political advertisement. Among other proposals, they advocate creating an online repository for all online political…