EU Pushes to Limit How Tech Companies Target Political Ads

A bill proposed Thursday by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, would restrict online tech platforms from targeting political ads at individual users based on a list of categories that regulators deem sensitive, including their race, political beliefs and health status, without users’ explicit consent. But it stops short of a broader ban on so-called microtargeting based on personal information that some activists had demanded.

The bill would also impose broad new requirements on social-media companies to disclose more information about every political ad they run, including how widely viewed an ad is and what criteria are used to determine who sees it, including targeting via the use of third-party data.

Companies that fail to comply could face fines of as much as 5% of their annual global revenue—higher than EU fines for privacy violations.