Political and State Advertising – New Obligations for Publishers and Service Providers

The Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising will mainly start to apply on 10 October 2025. The purpose of the Regulation is to ensure that political advertising is carried out in a way that enables citizens to understand who is trying to influence their political opinions, how, and with what resources. The Media Freedom Act, on the other hand, seeks to increase transparency regarding advertising by public authorities and other public entities. The Media Freedom Act entered into application on 8 August 2025.

This blog introduces the main obligations laid down in these legislative acts, 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 that seeks to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, voting behaviour, or a legislative or regulatory process. The media sector has worked to ensure that the current situation is largely maintained – meaning that editorial content and advertising addressing social issues remain clearly outside the scope and supervision of the Regulation.

In the context of political advertising transparency, two groups of actors play a particularly important role: publishers of political advertising and providers of political advertising services. A publisher of political advertising is an entity that provides the space, platform, or channel for presenting a political advertisement to the public, such as a media company. A provider of political advertising services, in turn, refers to an entity that designs, implements, or otherwise enables political advertising, such as an advertising agency or a company offering digital advertising technology.

The obligations of service providers relate in particular to the planning, financing, and targeting of political advertising. The Regulation requires service providers to document all relevant information concerning the organisation of a campaign. This includes the sources of funding, the objectives of the advertising, the definition of target audiences, 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.

The responsibilities of publishers are multi-layered. Publishers must ensure that each political advertisement contains the transparency label required under the Regulation. This means that the advertisement must clearly and immediately indicate its sponsor, the nature and duration of the campaign, and information on any targeting used. The advertisement must also clearly indicate where a more detailed transparency notice is available. This notice may be made accessible, for example, through a link or a QR code included in the advertisement.

To enable the publication of the transparency label and transparency notice, both publishers and service providers must, through contractual arrangements, ensure that they receive from the advertiser accurate information on, among other things, the sponsors of the political advertisement and their backgrounds, as well as the election, referendum, or legislative or regulatory process to which the political advertisement relates. In addition, they must keep records of the amounts received from each source 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 authorities can later review and assess compliance with the Regulation.

Publishers must also report all political online advertisements they have published, together with the transparency information required by the Regulation, to a European register. They must also include in their annual reports aggregated, campaign-specific data concerning the monetary amounts or other benefits received as full or partial compensation for services provided, including the use of targeting and ad display technologies.

Targeting of Political Advertising

A significant part of the new Regulation concerns the targeting of advertising. The Regulation prohibits the targeting of political advertising based on sensitive personal data (special categories of personal data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation), such as political opinions, religious beliefs, or ethnic origin. If targeting is based on other, so-called ordinary personal data, such as age, gender, or geographical location, it is permitted only if the personal data has been collected directly from the individual and the individual has given explicit consent for the processing of personal data specifically for political advertising purposes.

The targeting of political advertising requires data controllers to undertake more extensive documentation obligations than those set out in the GDPR. The controller must, among other things, prepare an annual risk assessment and approve, implement, and make publicly available internal policies describing how targeting techniques are used. The controller must also keep records of the use of such techniques, including the mechanisms and parameters applied. Each targeted political advertisement must include, in connection with the transparency label, additional information enabling individuals to understand the logic and key parameters of the targeting techniques used. The new obligations will require digital advertising operators to develop new processes and technical solutions to manage and ensure the traceability of targeting logic.

Advertising by Public Authorities and Public Entities

Under the Media Freedom Act, public authorities and public entities must make publicly available, in electronic and user-friendly form, annual information on their public expenditure related to state advertising. The definition of a public authority or public entity can be considered to include government ministries, state agencies and institutions, state enterprises, and off-budget state funds. The definition also covers state-owned companies where the board has decisive control. Based on the wording of the Act, the definition would also include cities and municipalities, joint municipal authorities, wellbeing regions and joint wellbeing authorities, as well as their subsidiaries and enterprises, and municipal or wellbeing-region-owned entities where the public body has decisive control.

These categories cover dozens of different actors, and media companies therefore face the challenge of identifying all entities covered by the Regulation so that they can inform users of their online services about the annual total amount of public funds received for state advertising and the annual total amount of advertising revenue received from public authorities or public entities in third countries. In addition to publishing this information on their own websites, media companies must also report it to the media services ownership database maintained by Traficom.

In Finland, information on state advertising will be collected in a procurement information repository maintained by the State Treasury, using purchase invoice data from public authorities and public entities. As a result, information such as the amount of advertising purchased by each authority or public entity from each service provider will be openly and publicly available from this repository. This means that individual authorities or other public entities will not have to publish their own information on advertising and announcement expenditure, and media companies will, in turn, be able to more easily verify whether an advertiser qualifies as a public authority or entity under the Media Freedom Act.

Conclusion

While the objectives of strengthening democracy and increasing transparency in advertising are highly commendable, the media sector has expressed criticism of the new regulation. The concern is that the new rules may make the publication of election or state advertising unprofitable for media companies due to extensive information obligations, a heavy administrative burden, and the risk of sanctions. If this happens, the regulation could have unintended effects on the visibility of elections, voter participation, the functioning of democracy, and the operating conditions of advertising-funded media.

Due to these new obligations, global digital giants such as Google and Meta have already announced that they will not participate in political advertising (Xandr/Microsoft had withdrawn earlier). It remains to be seen whether election advertising will shift from their platforms to domestic media, or whether voters will increasingly receive election-related information (or mis/disinformation) and advertising through platforms such as TikTok or X, even though both have formally banned political advertising on their platforms. According to a report by Faktabaari and CheckFirst, TikTok promoted misogynistic content and reinforced stereotypes in Finland during the 2024 European elections, while X has allegedly used data relating to political opinions or religious beliefs for political microtargeting – precisely the issues the new Regulation seeks to address.

The shift of political display advertising to domestic media is further complicated by the fact that most Finnish publishers use Microsoft’s or Google’s advertising management systems, and the cookie consent mechanisms currently based on IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) do not support the collection of explicit consent required under the Regulation. It is clear that the decisions of global digital companies – and regulation designed primarily to address problems occurring on global digital platforms – will also have significant implications for domestic media.

At Folks, we are happy to help interpret the complexities of the new regulation as well as identify the opportunities it may bring.

Anna Paimela

Osakas

anna.paimela@legalfolks.fi

+358 40 1648626

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