Disclosure of paid-for advertising and ranking
The new point 11a applies to any trader providing for a possibility to search for ‘products’ (i.e. goods, services, digital content), including search engines. It does not ban the inclusion of advertisements or higher ranking due to the payments received from the traders concerned, but requires the provider of the search facility to clearly inform the consumer when search results include products or websites or URLs of traders who have paid to be included in the search results (advertisement) or when the ranking is influenced by direct or indirect payments. ‘Advertisement’ refers to insertion on top or within the ‘natural’ results of listings that otherwise would not have been presented to the consumer according to the applicable objective search criteria. ‘Higher ranking’ refers to situations where the position of one or more listings in the ranking has been improved due to direct or indirect payments. Recital 20 of Directive (EU) 2019/2161 provides non-exhaustive examples of indirect payment for the purpose of higher ranking: Acceptance by a trader of additional obligations towards the provider; Increased commission per transaction; Different compensation schemes that specifically lead to higher ranking; In contrast, indirect payments do not cover payments for general services, such as listing fees or membership subscriptions, which address a broad range of functionalities, provided that such payments are not dedicated to achieving higher ranking. Advertisements within search results and search results that are the object of payment specifically for achieving a higher ranking must be clearly and prominently highlighted as such. Information about the advertisement or payment specifically for achieving a higher ranking must be presented in immediate affiliation to the relevant search result in a visually salient way, that stands out from the rest of the general online interface, and in a way that the consumer cannot avoid noticing when seeing the search result. However, where payments which are made specifically for achieving a higher ranking are part of the ranking parameters and influence the ranking of all the results displayed, information about such payments can also be provided by means of a single clear and prominent statement on the search results page. Such statement should be separate and in addition to the general information about ranking parameters that traders must provide in accordance with Article 7(4a) UCPD discussed above. The Commission and national consumer authorities in the CPC network addressed the disclosure of advertising and paid ranking within search results in the joint actions regarding the Booking.com and Expedia platforms (349) (see also section 4.3.6). As a result of these actions, these platforms accepted to show on the search results page when payments affect the ranking of accommodations. They also added a link for further explanation and clearly labelled such properties. Moreover, the previous indication ‘sponsored’ was replaced with the more telling labels ‘Ad’, ‘Advert’, ‘Advertisement’, or similar equivalent text in local language, and those indications were made more prominent.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.