Google will stop serving political advertisements in the European Union. The decision, announced in The Keyword blog, is in response to an upcoming new rule for the bloc that “introduces significant new operational challenges and legal uncertainties for political advertisers and platforms.” The company says the Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising has an overly broad definition for political advertising and raised concerns that technical guidance around the policy may not be given until close to October 2025, when the rules will take effect.

In addition to no longer serving that ad content ahead of next October, Google said that paid political advertisements will also not be allowed on YouTube in the EU. The company said that similar regulations have already led it to stop serving political ads in Canada, France and Brazil.

Google’s advertising and ad tech have been subjected to scrutiny by the European government in recent years. The company faced (but ultimately avoided) fines for “abusive” advertising practices in 2019, and last year was hit with antitrust accusations. And Google has also engaged in other eyebrow-raising behavior in the bloc. Just yesterday, the company began what it called a “small, time-limited test” to omit results from EU-based news publishers in search, Google News and the Discover feed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-will-stop-serving-political-ads-in-the-eu-including-on-youtube-210604043.html?src=rss

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