Digital Omnibus : Why audience measurement is at stake

The Digital Omnibus was launched by the European Commission in November 2025 as part of its competitiveness and simplification agenda, during the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The most significant negotiations on Articles 88a and 88b have since taken place under the Cypriot Presidency, which has introduced several important revisions to the original proposal.

More than a cookie discussion

The Digital Omnibus is not just a privacy debate. It is a marketing, media and competition debate too. It contains two provisions that have attracted particular attention: Article 88a and Recital 44, which regulates access to information stored on users' devices, and article 88b, which introduces the possibility of expressing privacy preferences through automated signals, for instance via browsers.

At first glance, these proposals seem designed to solve problems everyone recognises such as consent fatigue. Consumers are tired of cookie banners, businesses struggle with compliance complexity, and policymakers are searching for simpler solutions. We support simplifying rules where risks to data subjects are low, but as often happens in digital regulation, the real consequences lie beneath the surface.

For marketers, the most important question is not whether cookie banners disappear. The real questions are whether the new rules will preserve the independent measurement systems that allow advertisers to evaluate media investments and whether they will ensure a level playing field between local media and tech giants.

The Article 88a problem

The concern raised by many industry stakeholders is that Article 88a and Recital 44 appear to misunderstand how audience measurement actually works.

The proposal creates a consent exemption for audience measurement, which sounds positive. However, the exemption is drafted in a way that largely limits it to measurement carried out by a service provider for its own use. That creates a problem because independent audience measurement is, by definition, not conducted solely for the provider's own use. It exists precisely to provide an independent and objective assessment of audience figures. Advertisers do not want media measuring themselves. They want trusted third parties to verify audience claims.

In the same way, Recital 44 does not clearly distinguish independent audience measurement from proprietary web analytics and internal publisher analytics. This creates the mistaken impression that audience measurement serves similar purposes to advertising targeting or behavioural profiling, which is not the reality.

In audience measurement, data is used solely to determine audience volumes. The results are aggregated statistical data that neither identify nor seek to identify individuals. As the Audience Measurement Coalition (AMC) has pointed out, audience measurement is therefore fundamentally different from ad-tech services because it produces aggregated statistical reports and is not used for behavioural targeting or profiling.

International industry organisations, including the AMC and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), warn that the current wording of Article 88a risks excluding the very independent measurement providers that the market relies on. If that happens, advertisers could lose access to comparable, verifiable and independently audited audience metrics.

At the same time, AMC warns that the latest draft of Recital 44b would require data to be "instantly anonymised" and prohibit the “combination of data from different services”. While these safeguards may appear privacy-friendly, they would make independent audience measurement technically unreliable, as accurate and verifiable audience metrics require limited temporary processing and the secure combination of different data sources before aggregate results can be produced.

The consequences of Article 88a and Recital 44 would extend far beyond the media sector. Reduced transparency would make it harder for brands to compare media investments, assess return on investment and allocate budgets efficiently.

Audience measurement matters

Every day, advertisers invest millions of euros based on audience data. Before a brand decides where to spend its marketing budget, it wants answers to some fundamental questions. How many people will the campaign reach? How often will consumers see the advertisement? Which channels will perform best? These questions can only be answered through audience measurement.

Importantly, audience measurement is not advertising technology. It does not target consumers. It does not build advertising profiles. It does not seek to influence individual behaviour. Its purpose is statistical: measuring audiences, comparing media performance and creating trusted market currencies that advertisers and agencies can use to make informed decisions.

Across Europe, these audience currencies are managed through independent structures known as Joint Industry Committees (JICs), bringing together advertisers, agencies and media around common standards. Organisations such as CIM in Belgium, Médiamétrie in France, AGMA in Germany and many others provide the transparency and accountability that advertising markets depend on.

Why this also matters for competition

There is another dimension to the debate: competition. Without independent audience measurement, advertisers would increasingly be forced to rely on the figures reported by platforms themselves.

Large digital platforms already possess vast amounts of first-party data and sophisticated internal measurement capabilities. They can measure audiences within their own ecosystems, often without relying on independent market currencies. Smaller publishers, broadcasters and advertisers depend much more heavily on independent measurement systems.

If regulation makes independent measurement more difficult while leaving proprietary platform measurement largely unaffected, a consequence could be a further concentration of power in the hands of a few global technology companies.

This is one reason why many stakeholders see the issue not only as a privacy question but also as a matter of media pluralism, market transparency and digital sovereignty.

Why marketers should care

For marketers, the Digital Omnibus may appear to be another distant regulatory file being negotiated in Brussels. In reality, it goes to the heart of how marketing effectiveness is measured and how digital markets function.

The outcome will influence whether advertisers continue to have access to independent audience currencies, whether media investments remain transparent and comparable, and whether media markets remain open and competitive.

Europe's objective should be clear: protect privacy, reduce unnecessary complexity and strengthen competitiveness. The challenge now is ensuring that the Digital Omnibus achieves all three objectives simultaneously.

If Article 88a and Recital 44 raises questions about how audiences are measured, Article 88b raises an equally important question: who controls the relationship between consumers, media and advertisers in the digital economy? That will be the focus of our next article on this topic.