The regulation's definition of a publisher
Under EU Regulation 2024/900 on the transparency and targeting of political advertising -- commonly called the Political Advertising Regulation or PAR -- a publisher is any entity that distributes political advertisements to the public. The regulation uses the term broadly, covering every medium through which a political ad can reach an audience.
If your organisation falls into any of the following categories, you are a publisher under the PAR:
- Newspapers and magazines -- print editions and their online counterparts
- Television and radio broadcasters -- including local, regional, and national stations
- Outdoor advertising companies -- billboard operators, transit advertising providers, poster networks
- Online news sites and digital platforms -- any website or service that displays political ads
- Advertising agencies -- when they act as intermediaries placing ads on behalf of political clients
The decisive criterion is not the size of your operation or the frequency of political ads you carry. If you publish even a single political advertisement, the regulation's obligations apply to you for that ad.
Your obligations as a publisher
The PAR assigns publishers three core responsibilities:
1. Verification duty (Art. 8)
Before publishing any political advertisement, you must verify that the sponsor has created a complete transparency notice. This means checking that the notice exists, that it contains all mandatory fields, and that the sponsor information appears plausible. You do not need to independently confirm every fact -- but you must satisfy yourself that the information is reasonable and consistent.
If a valid transparency notice does not exist, you may not publish the ad.
2. Record-keeping
You must maintain records of the political advertisements you publish, including the identity of the advertisers and the associated transparency notices. These records must be retained for at least five years after the end of the ad's distribution period (Art. 12). This is longer than many publishers' standard archiving practices, so it is worth reviewing your retention policies now.
3. Cooperation with authorities
Competent national authorities may request information about political advertisements you have published. You must be able to provide the relevant records -- the advertiser's identity, the transparency notice, the publication dates, and your verification documentation.
Why these obligations exist
The regulation's purpose is straightforward: ensure that citizens can identify who is behind a political ad, who paid for it, and why they are seeing it. Publishers occupy a critical position in this chain because they control the last step before an ad reaches the public. The verification duty exists precisely because publishers are the final checkpoint.
The shared responsibility model means that liability is not one-sided. The sponsor is responsible for creating an accurate transparency notice. The publisher is independently responsible for verifying that the notice exists and is complete. If you publish without checking, you bear your own legal exposure -- regardless of what the sponsor did or failed to do.
The October 2026 deadline
For print, broadcast, and outdoor publishers, these obligations take effect in October 2026. Online platforms have been subject to the regulation since October 2025.
October 2026 may seem distant, but it coincides with election periods in several EU Member States. That means the compliance deadline will arrive at exactly the moment when demand for political advertising is highest. Publishers who prepare early will handle the transition smoothly. Those who wait will be building processes under campaign pressure.
How The Taurus helps publishers
The Taurus is designed to make your compliance obligations manageable rather than burdensome. As a publisher on the platform, you can:
- Track your advertisers -- maintain a structured record of every political advertiser you work with, including their identity, contact details, payer information, and data controllers
- Manage ad bookings -- create a record for each political ad, track its status through the lifecycle from setup to archival, and link it to the corresponding transparency notice
- Verify notice status at a glance -- instead of manually checking each field, you see immediately whether a notice is complete and published
- Send advertiser invites -- if an advertiser has not yet created their transparency notice, you can send them an invitation directly from The Taurus, guiding them through the process
- Configure notice defaults -- set your preferred channel, language, targeting settings, and QR code colours once, and they apply automatically to all notices created through you
- Maintain a documented record -- every verification, every status change, and every advertiser interaction is recorded and retained for the full statutory period
The result is that your Art. 8 verification duty becomes a quick status check rather than a manual compliance exercise. And your five-year record-keeping obligation is handled automatically.
Next steps
If you are ready to set up your publisher profile, the next article walks you through the process step by step. If you want to understand the verification duty in detail, see the article on Art. 8 requirements.