European Commission seeks evidence on DSA advertising repositories

What changed

The work concerns the repositories maintained by very large online platforms and very large online search engines. These public records are intended to make information about advertising accessible for scrutiny. The announcement is a consultation about upcoming guidance, not a statement that a new set of technical requirements has already been adopted.

The Commission invites input from researchers, civil society, journalists, relevant platform providers and advertising-industry representatives. Its stated aim is to improve the effectiveness of repositories as a source for investigating risks such as scams, misleading practices and illegal advertising.

For advertising teams, the practical opportunity is to document concrete problems encountered when using an ad library. Examples might concern whether a record can be found, interpreted or compared with a live advertisement. Those examples are potential contributions to the consultation, rather than confirmed findings by the Commission about a particular platform.

Keep the consultation deadline separate from any implementation timetable. The 2 December date is the closing date for evidence, and the announcement does not establish when final guidelines will apply. It also does not require an individual advertiser to create a public advertising repository of its own.

The original source is the European Commission’s unsigned announcement, with a subsequent page update shown on 5 November. This article uses the original publication date. The linked consultation provides the authoritative participation details; no response is submitted on behalf of readers or the Collective.