DCU researcher and collaborators submit G20 policy brief on regulation in digital advertising

Online advertising is a central revenue stream for digital platforms like X and Meta, but the deregulation of the industry in most countries has the potential to undermine privacy, and social cohesion. Currently, there are strong regulations in some countries and regions such as the EU, but not in others creating an imbalance and impeding effective regulation.

These are the findings of the policy brief submitted to the T20, a G20 engagement group. The group includes a task force focused on fostering inclusive digital transformation. The brief makes the case that adverts must be transparent, auditable and compliant with local laws to ensure free market competition, national sovereignty and freedom of choice for users and consumers. It includes a diagnosis of the key issues, a series of recommendations, as well as a scenario of outcomes.

The main objective of the brief is to recommend transparency mechanisms, parameters and means of accessing data from digital platforms for use in global and local contexts. The recommendations are based on a comparative analysis of public documentation and terms of use from major online platforms and case studies from four different regions: Brazil, USA, Ireland and Thailand.

One of the issues identified in the study cited in the report points to political advertising. The comparative analysis showed that there are differences in what is considered political among different online platforms. In the absence of a legally-binding regulatory framework, the definition of what defines a political issue is delegated to private social media corporations and in a lot of cases to advertisers themselves, which leads to frequent mistakes–whether due to advertisers’ negligence and/or the lack of well-defined criteria.

The other issues identified were a lack of transparency in microtargeting practices, lack of consistency in tools and policies across regions, and a lack of insight into and control over who is placing digital adverts.

The team behind the brief brings together researchers from the Federal University of Rio De Janeiro, social media campaign group Sleeping Giants, Clemson University and Chulalongkorn University.

The latest G20 Summit took place in Rio de Janeiro on the 18th and 19th of November.