What it is

The right to advertising transparency is the right to know who is advertising to you and why when you see ads online.

Before the DSA: Online advertising was a "black box"

• You didn't know who pays for the ads

• You didn't know why you were being targeted

• It is impossible to understand on the basis of which data

After DSA: mandatory transparency

• Each ad must be clearly identified

• He must say who pays

• It must explain why it is being shown to you

• You need to be able to turn off personalization

WHAT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE ON EACH ADS

1. CLEAR IDENTIFICATION AS ADVERTISING

Visible label:

• "Sponsored"

• "To"

• "Advertising"

• "Announcement"

Requirements:

• Not hidden

• Not ambiguous

• Differentiated by organic content

2. WHO PAYS FOR THE ADVERTISEMENT

Advertiser Information:

• Name (individual or company)

• VAT or tax identification number

• Site

• Website

• If through an agency: agency name + end customer

3. WHY IT IS SHOWN TO YOU (TARGETING)

Targeting parameters used:

• Demographic data (age, gender, location)

• Interests (inferred from online activity)

• Behavior (sites visited, purchases)

• Remarketing (you visited the advertiser's site)

• Lookalike (profile similar to existing customers)

4. PREFERENCE MANAGEMENT LINK

Each ad must link to where you can:

• Opt out of personalized advertising

• Change assigned interests

• Oppose profiling

• See more ads from the same advertiser

ADVERTISING REPOSITORY (ONLY VLOP over 45M USERS)

Very large platforms MUST maintain searchable public archives:

Archive content:

• All ads published

• Publication period

• Total number of impressions

• Advertiser

• Targeting parameters (aggregated)

Accessibility:

• Anyone can search

• Search by: advertiser, keyword, period

• Maintained for 1 year after the end of the campaign

Available examples:

• Meta Ad Library: facebook.com/ads/library

• Google Ads Transparency: adstransparency.google.com

• TikTok Ad Library: tiktok.com/transparency

PROHIBITION OF ADVERTISING TARGETED TO MINORS

Absolute rule DSA Art. 27:

• NO personalized advertising to under 18s

• NO behavioral profiling of minors

• NO cross-site tracking to target minors

Advertising permitted to minors:

• Contextual ads only (e.g. video game ads on video game page)

• NO ads based on inferred interests

• NO ads based on past behavior