European approach(es) to regulating targeted political advertising money, data, and more

The 2018 Cambridge Analytica controversy kickstarted a flurry of regulatory activity across the globe to address manipulative and discriminatory targeted political advertising. This chapter will take stock of the current state of play of the regulation of political microtargeting and evaluate to what extent public values that have traditionally been key in political advertising regulation are safeguarded in regulation that addresses political microtargeting. It will focus on the European approaches to political advertising regulation, while also briefly touching on the broader global trends. It finds that regulatory responses to political microtargeting generally focus on limiting the data and money used for political microtargeting, while making the microtargeting that does take place more transparent to users (through labels) and the public (through ad libraries). Restrictions on the functioning of microtargeting and content of the targeted messages have proven more contentious, in part due to their impact on freedom of expression. As a result, regulation governing political microtargeting does not fully address the commercial logic embedded in the platform advertising systems on which political parties rely to reach voters, or the targeting of users with (artificially generated) content tailored to their individual vulnerabilities.