Political advertising and state advertising: new obligations for publishers and service providers

The Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising (TTPA) will apply for the most part from 10 October 2025. Its purpose is to ensure that political advertising is carried out in a way that enables citizens to understand who is seeking to influence their political views, by what means and with what resources. The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), in turn, seeks to increase transparency in advertising by public authorities and other public-sector entities. The European Media Freedom Act became applicable on 8 August 2025.

In this article, we examine the principal obligations under the new legislation, particularly from the perspective of advertising publishers, such as media companies, and advertising service providers, such as advertising agencies.

Main obligations for publishers and advertising service providers

The Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising defines political advertising broadly. It covers not only advertising paid for by political parties and candidates, but also other advertising intended to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, voting behaviour, or a legislative or regulatory process. The media sector has sought to preserve the current position to a large extent by ensuring that editorial content and advertising concerning social and political issues are clearly excluded from the scope of the Regulation and from regulatory supervision.

Two categories of operators have a particularly important role in ensuring transparency in political advertising: publishers of political advertising and political advertising service providers. A publisher of political advertising is an operator that provides the space, platform or channel through which a political advertisement is made available to the public, such as a media company. A political advertising service provider, in turn, is an operator that designs, produces or otherwise facilitates political advertising, such as an advertising agency or a digital advertising technology company.

The obligations of service providers relate particularly to the design, financing and targeting of political advertising. The Regulation requires service providers to document all material information concerning the organisation of a campaign. This includes sources of funding, the objectives of the advertising, the definition of target groups and the technical solutions used for targeting. The service provider must provide this information to the publisher so that the advertisement can be approved in accordance with the Regulation.

Publishers have responsibilities at several levels. They must ensure that every political advertisement includes the transparency label required by the Regulation. The advertisement must clearly and immediately identify its sponsor, the nature and duration of the campaign, and any targeting techniques used. It must also clearly indicate where a more detailed transparency notice is available. The advertisement may direct users to the transparency notice through a link or QR code, for example.

To make publication of the transparency label and transparency notice possible, both publishers and political advertising service providers must use contractual arrangements to ensure that advertisers provide them with accurate information concerning matters such as the sponsors of the political advertisement and their background, as well as the election, referendum, legislative process or regulatory process to which the advertisement relates. In addition, publishers and service providers must maintain records of matters including the amounts received from each party in connection with political advertising.

Publishers and service providers must retain this information for at least seven years after the end of the campaign so that the authorities can subsequently review and assess compliance with the Regulation. Publishers must also report all political advertisements published online, together with the information required in the transparency notice, to the European repository. In addition, they must include in their management reports campaign-specific information on the amounts or other benefits received in full or partial consideration for the services provided, including the use of targeting and advertisement-delivery techniques.

Targeting of political advertising

A significant part of the new Regulation concerns the targeting of advertising. The Regulation prohibits the targeting of political advertising on the basis of sensitive personal data, meaning special categories of personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation, such as political opinions, religious beliefs or ethnic origin. Where other categories of personal data, such as age, gender or geographical location, are used for targeting, the targeting is permitted only if the personal data has been collected directly from the data subject and the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of their personal data specifically for political advertising.

The targeting of political advertising requires controllers to maintain more extensive documentation than under the GDPR alone. Among other things, the controller must carry out an annual risk assessment and adopt, implement and make publicly available internal policies describing how advertising-targeting techniques are used. The controller must also keep records of the use of those techniques and the mechanisms and parameters involved. Additional information must be provided in connection with the transparency label for each targeted advertisement to enable individuals to understand the logic and principal parameters of the techniques used. The new obligations will require digital advertising operators to develop new processes and technical solutions for managing the logic of targeting and ensuring its traceability.

Advertising by public authorities and public-sector entities

Under the European Media Freedom Act, public authorities and public-sector entities must make information on their annual public expenditure on state advertising publicly available in an electronic and user-friendly format. The definition of a public authority or public-sector entity can be considered to include central government administrative authorities, government agencies and institutions, state enterprises and off-budget state funds. It also covers state-owned companies in which the government exercises decisive control. Based on the wording of the legislation, the definition would also include cities and municipalities, including joint municipal authorities, wellbeing services counties and joint county authorities, as well as their subsidiaries and public enterprises. It would further include entities owned by municipalities or wellbeing services counties in which one or more municipalities or wellbeing services counties exercise decisive control.

These categories encompass dozens of different operators. Media companies therefore face the challenge of identifying all entities falling within the scope of the legislation so that they can inform users of their online services of the total annual amounts of public funds received for state advertising and the total annual advertising revenue received from authorities or public-sector entities in third countries. In addition to publishing this information on their own websites, media companies must report it to Traficom’s media service ownership database.

In Finland, information on state advertising is intended to be collected in the procurement data repository maintained by the State Treasury by using purchase invoice data from public authorities and public-sector entities. Information on state advertising, such as the amount of advertising purchased by each public authority or other public-sector entity from each service provider, would therefore be openly and publicly available through the repository. Once the repository is in place, individual authorities and other public-sector entities would not need to publish information on their advertising and public-notice expenditure themselves. At the same time, media companies would be able to verify more easily whether an advertiser qualifies as a public authority or public-sector entity under the European Media Freedom Act.

Conclusion

Although the objectives of strengthening democracy and increasing transparency in advertising are highly commendable, the media sector, among others, has taken a critical view of the new legislation. One concern is that publishing election advertising or state advertising may no longer be commercially viable for media companies because of the extensive disclosure obligations, heavy administrative burden and risk of sanctions. Should this happen, the legislation could have unforeseen consequences for the visibility of elections, electoral participation and the functioning of democracy, as well as for the operating conditions of advertising-funded media.

Because of the new obligations, global digital platforms such as Google and Meta have already announced that they will not participate in political advertising at all. Xandr and Microsoft had withdrawn from the market earlier. It remains to be seen whether election advertising will move from these platforms to domestic media, or whether voters will increasingly receive election-related information, misinformation, disinformation and advertising through platforms such as TikTok or X, even though those platforms have formally prohibited election advertising. According to a study by Faktabaari and CheckFirst, TikTok recommended misogynistic content and reinforced stereotypes in Finland in the run-up to the 2024 European Parliament elections. X has also been alleged to have used data concerning political opinions or religious beliefs for the microtargeting of political advertising. These platforms have therefore been alleged to exhibit precisely the kinds of problems that the new Regulation is intended to address. The transfer of political display advertising to domestic media is complicated by the fact that many Finnish publishers use advertising management systems provided by Microsoft or Google. In addition, current cookie consent mechanisms based on IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) do not support the collection of the explicit consent required under the Regulation. What is clear is that the decisions made by global digital platforms, and regulation primarily intended to address problems arising on those platforms, will also have significant consequences for domestic media.

At Folks, we are happy to assist not only in navigating the complexities of the new legislation, but also in identifying the opportunities it may create.

Anna Paimela

Partner

anna.paimela@legalfolks.fi

+358 40 1648626

To receive our articles directly by email, subscribe to the Folks newsletter here.