• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

TikTok will introduce additional search options and filters, allowing users to find advertisements more easily after the European Commission received a commitment from the U.S.-based company to provide advertising repositories that ensure full transparency around ads on its services. The move now is required by the Digital Services Act (DSA).

As part of the agreement, TikTok will provide targeting criteria selected by advertisers, including the URLs in the link provided in the ad.

It also must provide access to aggregated user data such as gender, age group and the state in which the users who were reached are located. The data will let people discover how ads are targeted and delivered. Information is available within a maximum of 24 hours.

"Transparent ad practices can build trust in the online environment," stated Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy for the European Commission.

She stated that the commission's aim is compliance, and when platforms engage constructively with the European Commission, it will be ready to accept their commitments.

DSA, as stated in the press release, requires platforms such as TikTok and others to maintain searchable and accessible ad repository for those that run on its services. Repositories are meant for regulators and researchers to detect scams, advertisements for illegal or age-inappropriate products, fake advertisements, and coordinated information operations.

TikTok has agreed to implement the commitments anywhere from two to 12 months depending on the specifics. 

On February 2024, and then again in December 2024, the European Commission opened formal proceedings to assess whether TikTok may breached the Digital Services Act. The European Commission published findings on advertising transparency in May 2025 and accepted TikTok's commitments today.

Google has similar issues with the European Commission DMA, effective March 6, 2024, requiring the company to make numerous product changes, including offering users choices to link or unlink services, modifying Search results to boost comparison sites, and updating consent policies for data sharing.

As a designated gatekeeper for its Play Store, Google must support third-party billing and app sideloading, with potential fines for non-compliance reaching up to 20% of worldwide turnover. 

Google, to comply with the European Commission, implemented more than 20 modifications to Google Search, including dedicated units for comparison sites in categories like flights and shopping, and removed features like flight information from search results, negatively impacting direct booking clicks for businesses.