Facebook, Google face tighter ad-tracking restrictions in Europe

However, lawmakers voted against completely banning targeted ads

Tech platforms such as Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms’s Facebook face tighter restrictions on how they target ads to users, after European lawmakers voted to toughen upcoming legislation.

The European Parliament moved to favor rules that restrict platforms from using sensitive data—race or religion, for instance—for targeting purposes, and require them to make it easy for users to opt out of tracking while continuing to use their products. 

The result of the vote, announced Thursday, makes measures set last month by a committee of European lawmakers even stricter. That agreement included a ban on targeting ads to minors, and using so-called