About us
Transparent political advertising as the democratic default.
The Taurus is an independent compliance platform for Regulation (EU) 2024/900 — the EU Political Advertising Regulation. Infrastructure that makes it straightforward for sponsors to create legally compliant transparency notices and for publishers to verify them before publication.
Regulation
EU 2024/900 (PAR)
In force since 10 April 2024 · fully applicable 10 October 2025
Company
Expanse UG & Co. KG
Munich, Germany · EU-hosted
Founder
Severin Kistner
10+ years engineering · former mayoral candidate
Regulation-first
Built from Art. 12 outward
Every field and validation rule in the wizard maps directly to the regulation. Not prose retrofitted to a form — legal text translated into structured data.
Art. 12 PAR · IR (EU) 2025/1410
Non-partisan
Open to every political actor
Parties, candidates, NGOs, advocacy organisations — without political alignment or editorial review. Compliance is the product; opinion is not.
No editorial gating · No ideological filter
Permanent record
Every notice, seven years
Every published notice receives a permanent ttad.eu URL. Machine-readable, free to access, retained for the minimum statutory period.
Art. 12(4) PAR — 7-year retention
Origin
43%
in the runoff election
Starnberg mayoral race, Bavaria · first-round placement
During the campaign it became clear how much administrative effort proper transparency actually requires — especially for local campaigns with no in-house legal.
Severin Kistner
Founder · former mayoral candidate
That experience fed directly into the product: The Taurus maps the workflows actually needed on the ground in a political campaign — not a generic SaaS bolted to a regulation after the fact.
Why this exists
Fragmented today. Structured with The Taurus.
Today
A compliance duty scattered across inboxes.
Spreadsheets tracking notice drafts
Email threads confirming sponsor identity
PDF templates with no audit trail
Sponsors don't know what to fill in. Publishers can't verify what they don't have. Neither side owns the other's data.
With The Taurus
One platform, two sides, one audit trail.
Guided wizard enforces every mandatory field
Compliance Link shares data both ways, auditably
Permanent URLs, timestamped versions, 7-year retention
Compliance-ready under Art. 11 PAR (publisher verification) and Art. 12 PAR (transparency notices).
Principles
Three commitments. No exceptions.
01
Regulation-first design
Every field, every validation rule, every legal reference in the wizard maps directly to the requirements of the regulation. We built the product from the regulation outward, not the other way around.
02
Non-partisan and independent
The Taurus is open to all parties, candidates, associations, and political organizations without exception. Transparency and legal compliance in political advertising are prerequisites for a functioning democracy — regardless of who is advertising.
03
Permanent public record
Every published transparency notice receives a permanent ttad.eu URL. Notices remain accessible for at least seven years after the last publication. The public register is open, machine-readable, and free to access.
Company & founder
The Taurus is operated by Expanse UG & Co. KG. Severin Kistner brings a decade of software engineering combined with first-hand political campaign experience.
Operator
Expanse UG (haftungsbeschränkt) & Co. KG
HRA 107329 · VAT DE314197563
Location
Munich, Germany
Bavariastr. 15, 80336 München
Founder
Severin Kistner
10+ years software engineering · ran for mayor in Starnberg
Data residency
EU-hosted
GDPR-native · all processing within the EEA
Legal details:
ImprintDirect line to the founder. Replies within one business day.