Europe provides a moderate set of transparency requirements for political ads.

It has been about a year since the EU's executive announced that they will propose standards for political advertising transparency in response to fears that internet micro-targets and big data tactics undermine democratic integrity and accountability.

It has released its proposal today. But to be honest, it did not seem like the wait was worth it.

According to the Commission's press release, the proposal will introduce "strict conditions for targeting and reinforcing" political advertising using digital tools, including a ban on targeting and reinforcing using or deriving "sensitive personal data, such as ethnic origin, religious belief, or sexual orientation. "

However, the alleged "ban" does not apply if "explicit agreement" is reached from the individual whose sensitive data is to be used to better target them with propaganda - and online "consent" to ad targeting is already a total devastation in the region.

So it's unclear why the Commission expects politically interested interests that are keen to influence elections to follow a privacy rule book that almost no online advertising in the area now follows, including those selling pointless plastic gadgets or "detox" teas.

The Commission lists a set of requirements which it states that anyone using policy orientation and reinforcement must follow in a question and answer session which provides more detailed information on the proposal, including having an internal policy for the use of such technologies; maintain records of the focus and use of personal data; and to register the source of the said personal data - so at best there seems to be hope of burdening propagandists with the need to create and maintain a reasonable denial.

Since it also allows for political orientation, you write: "Orientation may also be permitted in connection with the lawful activities of foundations, associations or non-profit entities with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union goal, when targeting their own members."

This is really ambiguous. A "foundation" or "association" with a political "goal" seems to be something that any campaign organization or self-interest can form - that is, to continue with the "legitimate" practice of (behaviorally?) Directing propaganda at voters.

In short, the potential for political micro-target gaps, including the dissemination of misinformation, seems enormous.

In terms of scope, the Commission states that the new rules will apply to "advertisements by, for or on behalf of a political actor", as well as "so-called" problem-based advertisements - aka politically charged issues that can be a powerful proxy for getting voters - which "is likely to affect the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behavior."

However, it is unclear how the rule would identify advertising that is within and out of reach.

The Commission has recommended "transparent labels" for funded political commercials, which is perhaps the most meaningful step in a rather weak plan. It states that these should be "clearly named" and provide "a lot of key data", such as the name of the aid "unmistakably proven and an effective recoverable message of fairness", as well as the amount spent on the political ad, the sources of funds used and a link between the ad and relevant elections or referendums.

However, the Commission seems to be betting that some transparency rules would force a sea shift in an industry that is notoriously opaque and full of fraud - an industry that has been driven by widespread misuse and illegal use of human data. Rather, to cut off the hydran's head by limiting the focus, for example by limiting the political focus to broad contextual buckets.

It then states: "All politically motivated administrations, from adtech which mediates advertising arrangements to consulting companies and publishing organizations that create marketing efforts, should keep the information they approach through the arrangement of their administration about the ad, the support and the spread of the ad." They will need to submit this information to the publisher of the political ad, which may be the website or app where the ad is viewed by a person, newspaper, broadcaster, radio station or other entity. The publisher must make the information available to the viewer. "

"With the proposed rules, any political advertising - whether on Twitter, Facebook or any other online platform - must be clearly marked as political advertising and contain the sponsor's identity and a message of transparency with the wider context of political advertising and its purposes, or

This is a wonderful hypothesis, but first of all, a lot of election influence comes from the other side of the region where the election is being held.

According to the Commission, organizations providing political advertising services in the EU but not having a physical presence there will need to appoint a legal representative in a Member State where the administrations are offered, indicating that "this will guarantee more straightforwardness and accountability of specialist cooperatives operating outside the Union."

It is unclear how it will require (and enforce) that provision.

Another issue is that all these transparency requirements will only apply to "political advertising services".

Propaganda published on Internet platforms such as Facebook by a pure "user" - probably an entity that does not identify itself as a political advertising company - seems to be exempt from any requirement for transparency or accountability.

Even if they - you know - operate from a Russian magic farm that aggressively tries to disrupt the European Union ... As long as they pretend to be "Hans, 32, Berliners, loves cats, despises the CSU."

Now, if platforms like Facebook were excellent at detecting, reporting and deleting fake behaviors, fake accounts and shady influence operations in their own backyards, it might not be such a big deal to leave the door open for "a user" to make posts irresponsible politically propaganda. But, as a number of whistleblowers have shown in painful detail, Facebook is far from it.

So there seems to be another big loophole - one that highlights why, rather than tinkering around the edges, the only true approach to tackling the problem of online misinformation and election mixing is to completely eliminate behavioral orientation. Not least because, by tinkering with some lukewarm measures that will only give a defective, incomplete transparency, you risk lulling people into a false sense of security - and to normalize predation (as long as there is a "policy" in place ).

When online ads and content can target individuals based on tracking their digital activity and collecting their personal data for profiling, it's open season for opaque InfluenceOps and malicious interests to circumvent whatever political advertising transparency rules you try to put on top of the cheap, highly scalable tools offered by advertising masses like Facebook to continue spreading their propaganda - at the expense of your free and fair choices.

What this regulation really proposes is to place a significant administrative burden on advertisers who intend to run genuinely public / superior political campaigns, while allowing the genitals of paid clay, hate spreaders and disinformation traders to exploit its many loopholes to carry out mass manipulation campaigns right through .

So it would be fascinating to see if the European Parliament makes an effort to teach the Commission by making some strategic revisions to its draft - especially as MEPs have taken a firmer stance towards micro-targeting in recent months.

For the time being, according to the Commission's proposal, "official" publishing administrations could be fined for failing to meet necessities, such as straightforwardness and record keeping, but the sum, which is not really local, by the Member States - at a level that the Commission says it should be "viable, proportionate and dissuasive."

What can this mean? According to the idea, National Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) will be responsible for monitoring the use of personal data in policy targeting and applying fines - eventually determining the quantity of fines that domestic policy violators may face.

Which does not exactly inspire confidence. After all, DPAs are funded by the same collection of political entities - or any type of political entity that happens to be in service.

Following the incident involving Cambridge Analytica's Facebook data use in 2018, the UK Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO) conducted a comprehensive assessment of political parties' data processing activities, reporting a shortlist of shortcomings across the 2020 political spectrum.

So, what did the EU's (at the time) DPA's best resources do in the face of all these gross violations by British political parties?

At that time, ICO's executive activities consisted of providing a series of recommendations.

There was also a warning that further measures may be taken in the future. And the ICO imposed a sanction last summer and fined the Conservative Party £ 10,000 for sending e-mails to voters. To be honest, it does not seem very daunting.

Another of Britain's political data criminals, the Labor Party, was forced to admit a "data issue" involving an undisclosed third-party data processor earlier this month. It remains to be seen what punishment it will face for not securing the information from supporters in that incident (after ICO audit).

Despite dozens of complaints about its secrecy targeting methods, and despite the ICO already in 2019 noting that its methods are outrageously illegal under existing data protection legislation, adtech has seen very little punishment from the EU data protection authorities.

In Europe, self-interest has been extremely successful in stopping regulatory action against intrusive advertising targeting.

And, presumably, track progress by eroding future EU standards - so they will do nothing to stop the big-data sausage factory of (in this case) political micro-target group from cutting 'n' dice through citizens' eyeballs.