Google didn't anticipate Fidesz not declaring their ads as political

At the end of September, Google stopped running political ads in the EU, effectively axing one of the most important tools in the communication arsenal of Fidesz and the Hungarian government. However, as we previously reported, this did not go without a glitch: several of their ads slipped through Google's filters, and several Fight Club (Harcosok Klubja) ads were run under the categories of ‘telecommunication’ and ‘corporate’, the responsibility for which – in theory – falls on Google's own classification algorithm. As we reported recently, a Polish company (Full Stack Experts – FSE) also appeared as a funding entity for the ads, and since then even more questions have arisen on the subject.

This is why we asked an expert working in the sector to help us clarify how Full Stack Experts fits into the picture, why it was possible to see Fidesz's political advertisements even after the introduction of the ban, and why YouTube was able to backdate some of them to an earlier time – although in case of the latter, even the expert could only speculate.

The intermediary pays the bill

Google operates a huge marketing system, and one part of it is a tool called DV360. According to the expert, this is mainly used by bigger advertisers and agencies for managing their campaigns, as it allows them to manage video ads posted on YouTube and banners appearing on regular websites – such as news portals – all in one place.

The Polish company Full Stack Experts, like many other Google-accredited partner companies, sells access to various Google services, including DV360, to its customers. Once the contract has been signed, the customer receives an account that they manage completely independently, meaning that they are also responsible for creating and targeting the ads launched from it. In addition, the customer is responsible for complying with Google's advertising rules and they also pay for the ads.

However, they do not pay Google directly, but the firm with which they have contracted for using the platform, and this firm then settles the bill with Google. This is why Full Stack Experts appeared to be financing some of Fidesz's ads. "This billing model is common and widely used in the industry internationally," according to the expert we spoke with.

However, this still does not fully explain what happened with Fidesz's advertisements. The party has advertised with two separate accounts. Full Stack Experts' services were used by an advertising account called FIDESZ – Magyar Polgári Szövetség (Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance), but there is another, especially active account, Fidesz–Magyar Polgári Szövetség Országgyűlési Képviselőcsoportja (The Parliamentary Group of Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance). In this case, it is not clear who financed the ads, which can only mean that Google was paid directly by the entity managing the advertising page, i.e. Fidesz.

On the other hand, it is still difficult to understand why Google classified the ads of both advertisers into so many different categories, except for politics – this is odd, because even if the algorithm may not be able to identify Balázs Németh, the host of The Fight Club (Harcosok Órája), as someone closely associated with Fidesz, it should be able to recognize Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, Fidesz’s top Budapest politician Alexandra Szentkirályi, and Minister of Construction and Transport János Lázár. We contacted Google twice to ask whether they had classified these ads into these strange categories on their own, or whether they had consulted with, say, Fidesz, but we have not received a response to date.

It is unclear why they were backdated

Another oddity is that when our previous article was published on October 1, the database showed these ads as still actively running, despite Google's ban effective as of September 22. Of course, if we assume that, in the eyes of the system, three leading Fidesz politicians calling on people to chat with them in an advertisement falls under the category of internet and telecommunications, then it is logical why it could keep running even after the ban on political advertisements had taken effect. What is interesting, however, is that shortly after our article was published, the last time the ads were displayed was backdated to September 22:

A logical explanation for this would be that the ads were not actually running any more due to the ban, only the counter kept going because there was a problem with the transition, but once this was fixed, the date jumped back to the actual last day. However, as Political Capital also reported they saw an advertisement (which, according to Google, was related to art and entertainment) of the Parliamentary Group of Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz-Magyar Polgári Szövetség Országgyűlési Csoport) in a Politico article on 23 September, even though according to the database, it was last shown to users on September 22. The experts we asked could not explain why this might have happened. According to a senior expert, none of Google's documentation on this subject has been updated, so they can only speculate.

What is also interesting is the way Google handled the ban: a self-declaration basis. Their Ads Developer Blog notes that anyone who created a new ad after September 3 had to declare whether it was politically themed or not. The same applied to anyone who wanted to modify an existing ad after September 3. But what about ads that were launched in August, say, by a political party (as shown in the images above), but then left untouched? What does Google do if the advertiser does not provide a statement about them?

Nothing.

Under the current regulations, political advertising campaigns that are already up and running can keep going as long as the advertiser is footing the bill and doesn't self-declare (if only to ease their conscience) the content as political.

According to the expert, one possible explanation for the backdating is that Fidesz may have declared within the last few days that the advertisement that was already running was political, "which is why it was backdated to September 22. But that would be pretty lame." However, this would not explain how it was possible for the Political Capital analyst to see an ad that was supposedly last shown on September 22 – on September 23.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to look back and see when a specific ad was shown to a specific user, and the database is not very user-friendly. In theory, it will be possible to find out in December when these ads were displayed by Google.

A minor but important point to note: it is unclear whether these ads are still running today. Although we cannot be certain, it is likely that Fidesz did not inform Google that these were political ads, as they are still categorized in various ways. However, as we have not seen any of these ads recently, we cannot say for sure whether they are still running. We sent questions to Fidesz about this, but they have so far not responded to any of our inquiries.

These advertising systems are completely non-transparent, which is precisely why Google shut them down. The EU 's regulation on political advertising would have made it more transparent to everyone who was paying for political ads, but the two major advertising platform operators, Google and Meta found it easier to ban political ads in the EU altogether, rather than comply with the requirements.

Moreover, they also removed their databases containing previous advertisements, meaning that researchers, analysts, and journalists can no longer see who advertised for how much prior to October 10, 2025, i.e., before the EU regulation came into force, unless they downloaded the database – which has since become inaccessible – prior to the change. No one knows anything about why and how things happen ‘underneath the hood’ of the advertising system, and even within the companies themselves, there are probably very few people who fully understand how the algorithm works, for example. We have nevertheless sent questions about the ads to both Google and Fidesz, and if we receive a substantial response, we will provide an update.