EU Digital Services Act: Major Platforms Fail Ad Transparency Rules
An assessment of 24 large online services finds widespread non-compliance with European advertising transparency mandates
By Giovanni Sapere
2 min readHuman-Edited, AI-Assisted
Digital platforms across the European Union are falling short of mandatory transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act. Independent legal research reveals that three quarters of evaluated services fail to provide country-level audience figures, while several have not delivered public ad repositories at all. The findings expose significant gaps between regulatory ambitions and current platform implementation.
Widespread deficiencies in online ad repositories
Under Article 39 of the EU Digital Services Act, designated very large online platforms and search engines must maintain public repositories detailing every advertisement displayed. According to an empirical legal evaluation led by Leon Y. Xiao and reported by TechXplore, an assessment of 24 online services subject to these rules revealed widespread non-compliance. While basic ad elements such as advertiser identity and display dates were typically provided, granular targeting information remained largely hidden from public view, complicating scrutiny of commercial innovation and promotional targeting.
Critical gaps in audience and demographic data
The legal requirement aims to give researchers, journalists and civil society access to granular data on how commercial promotions and trademark campaigns reach users. However, TechXplore reports that 75% of the repositories failed to include country-specific reach data, and roughly half omitted precise targeting criteria such as specific user interests. Furthermore, systems operated by X and Snapchat were found to be technically unstable, while only Meta successfully supplied reach data categorized by demographic criteria including age and gender.
Inconsistent enforcement by the European Commission
The analysis underscores a sharp divergence between statutory transparency rules and practical enforcement. Although the European Commission previously took regulatory action against TikTok over incomplete repository features, TechXplore notes that platforms that completely failed to launch a functional web interface have escaped similar penalties. Regulators have yet to issue detailed compliance technical standards, leaving ad repositories vulnerable to inconsistent reporting and shielding proprietary targeting tools from public oversight.
What to watch in digital platform compliance
Independent observers emphasize that functional transparency tools are vital to studying online behavior, algorithmic accountability, and the protection of intellectual property against misleading ad distribution. As outlined by TechXplore, researchers are advising scrutiny to begin with Meta's Ad Library, which remains the most usable interface despite its own technical constraints, while urging authorities to establish uniform compliance guidelines and consistent enforcement across all global digital services.
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