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CRITEO Technology SAS

CRITEO

Criteo is a global technology company that powers the world’s marketers and media owners with trusted and impactful advertising through our world-leading Commerce Media Platform, a suite of products that activates the world’s largest set of commerce data to drive better commerce outcomes.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Birgit Sippel (Member of the European Parliament) and European Digital Rights and

4 Dec 2025 · Digital Omnibus & Privacy: From Simplification to Smart Regulation Policy Breakfast

Response to Digital package – digital omnibus

10 Oct 2025

See attached paper
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Response to European Data Union Strategy

7 Jul 2025

The challenges and observations made in 2020 for the EU Data Strategy are still fully relevant. The latest developments in generative and agentic AI becoming key drivers of competitiveness make the need for EU action more pressing than ever. All European companies must be able to fully leverage the potential of data with trust. Consequently, the data union strategy must enable legal certainty by addressing the regulatory issues linked to data use, with the aim of enabling public and private organizations to harness the potential data. In this view, we believe that the following proposals should be considered: 1. Consolidation of data regulation: Consolidating EU data legislation could be an excellent way to streamline the regulatory framework, harmonize key concepts, create a common taxonomy and address some of the overlaps, (especially the AI Act and the GDPR) to achieve a better balance between the regulations' various objectives. However, such an effort would be meaningless if the GDPR were to remain outside the scope of consolidation. The fundamental distinction between personal and non-personal data which triggers the application of the GDPR is the cornerstone in the application of all these rules. 2. Clarify the notion of data: A clear definition of data is a prerequisite to defining the Data Strategy. The uncertainty surrounding whether data qualifies as personal data under the GDPR is a fundamental obstacle to data processing activities, particularly when training or fine-tuning AI models. The delineation between personal and non-personal data through clear and actionable guidance is crucial to understanding whether data use is subject or not the compliance obligations and the use restrictions of the GDPR. The data union strategy can be more ambitious for the data that falls outside of the scope of the GDPR. The definition of personal data must consider the wide variety of data uses in different contexts to be future-proof and enable innovation. It should rely on the assessment of the "reasonable risk of identification of individuals" rather than on purely theorical definition that would apply to all organisations in all instances, even when there are no reasonable means to link to the individual. Similarly, some data (industrial data, technical data) should be clearly exempted from the scope of personal data as the risk to individuals privacy is theorical or very remote. More generally, frameworks should define the criteria for data to be considered anonymous or pseudonymous. 3. Merge the e-Privacy Directive and the GDPR: The provisions of the e-Privacy Directive that regulate personal data should be merged into the GDPR to enable for more simplicity of the regulatory framework and more coherence in the risk-based approach. 4. Promote Privacy Enhancing Technologies: To enable data sharing between multiple organizations and across continents, Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) must be developed at scale so that they are widely available to all market players at a reasonable cost. The law should provide for incentives enabling the development of these technologies and provide for the adoption of the relevant technical frameworks. 5. Better harmonize the interpretation of data regulation: One single EU governance body would be preferable to harmonize the interpretation of the regulatory framework governing data uses. As data sharing involves more than just data protection and has a significant impact on competition, as well as representing major opportunities for research and innovation, all interested authorities should participate in this governance structure. The scope of the European AI Boards remit could be expanded accordingly.
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Meeting with Olivier Micol (Head of Unit Justice and Consumers)

24 Jun 2025 · FLASH report – meeting between DG JUST (unit C3) and Criteo on 24 June 2025

Response to A European Strategy for AI in science – paving the way for a European AI research council

2 Jun 2025

Criteo is a global technology company and a leader in online advertising, serving over 18,000 clients globally. At the heart of our innovation is the France-based Criteo AI Lab (CAIL), a research organization with scientists and engineers working on advancing the state of the art in computer vision, natural language processing, and large-scale optimization for industrial-scale AI. CAIL maintains active collaborations with top European institutions and publishes in premier AI venues. As an AI-native company since 2005, we see the opportunity for Europe to lead not only in defining responsible AI principles, but also in developing the infrastructure and talent pipeline to apply AI at scale. The Strategy must bridge the gap between academia and industry which is one of the main reasons for Europe lagging behind US/China. One key action is funding structured partnerships with multi-year grants to bring fundamental AI research into applied settings. There is an also need to align funding policies with real-world scientific impact. Thus, we suggest: 1. Bridge research and application with aligned funding mechanisms. This can be done by launching AI innovation-focused EU research grants under Horizon and other frameworks, specifically targeted at emerging areas in AI and their application to scientific challenges, possibly in collaboration with industries. For example, at CAIL, we participate to a joint research team (with Inria and ENSAE) and joint PhD programs that embed researchers within industry to translate theoretical work into production models. However, funding must deprioritize legacy topics that do not reflect the current pace of AI progress. 2. Ensure access to infrastructure for all scientific actors. We support the initiatives like French Jean Zay and EuroHPC with further increasing investments. We believe it is important to encourage cloud resource grants tied to research proposals. Additionally, there is a need for supporting early-stage scientific AI startups and spin-offsespecially those that need only a few GPUs or moderate cloud credits to build proofs of concept (PoCs). Many European deep-tech startups face high entry barriers compared to peers in the U.S. or China due to lack of compute or institutional support. 3. Modernize academic evaluation and scientific curriculum standards. To support AI in science, we must recognize the venues where high-impact AI research is actually being produced (such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR conferences), and reform evaluation systems that remain outdated. This includes supporting AI faculty hiring tracks across disciplines, enabling physics, biology, and economics departments to embed modern AI expertise. 4. Europe should also support post-PhD pathways that keep talent engaged in the EU ecosystem through fellowships, startup support, or research roles in industry (such as French Jeune Docteur and CIFRE). This is critical to retaining highly trained researchers and avoiding brain drain to non-EU institutions.
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Response to Apply AI Strategy

2 Jun 2025

Criteo is a global technology company and a leader in online adevrtising, serving over 18,000 clients globally. At the heart of our innovation is the France-based Criteo AI Lab (CAIL), a research organization with scientists and engineers working on advancing the state of the art in computer vision, natural language processing, and large-scale optimization for industrial-scale AI. CAIL maintains active collaborations with top European institutions and publishes in premier AI venues. As an AI-native company since 2005, we see the opportunity for Europe to lead not only in defining responsible AI principles, but also in developing the infrastructure and talent pipeline to apply AI at scale. However, despite Europes strength in theoretical AI research, we often struggle to align that expertise with scalable industrial solutions. The persistent gap between academic research and industry deployment is one of the most significant challenges for the European AI ecosystem. We believe it is important to: 1. Fund structured academiaindustry collaborations (e.g., multi-year joint labs or consortia) that promote deep integration of research into industrial contexts. At CAIL for instance we are part of the FairPlay team (joint research team with French Inria and ENSAE) and joint PhD programs, which allow researchers to translate fundamental models into production-scale algorithms. 2. Support open-source contributions and evaluation benchmarks, such as initiatives like HuggingFace and ScikitLearn, which originated in Europe. Open tooling accelerates AI development and ensures that SMEs and research groups can innovate without relying solely on proprietary ecosystems. 3. Establish shared European AI infrastructure (AI superclouds) that provide accessible training and inference resources for public and private actors, including startups, universities, and SMEs. French Jean Zay and EuroHPC are great examples of shared clusters that support state-of-the-art research and industrial innovation. We support the initiatives like AI Gigafactories with further increasing investment in shared services. 4. Simplify regulatory compliance through unified tools and guidance. AI adoption at scale requires legal clarity and certainty. The Apply AI Strategy should be accompanied by a clear set of guidelines, model documentation templates, and shared auditing tools to help institutions and companies comply with the AI Act and related regulations. This is particularly crucial for smaller actors who lack in-house legal and compliance teams. Harmonized guidance would also lower the burden of cross-border operations within the EU.
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Meeting with Ioan-Dragos Tudorache (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné) and Booking.com B.V. and

25 Mar 2025 · Challenges for European tech companies that want to leverage AI to compete globally. Need for a coherent, proportionate, and effectively enforced regulatory framework that increases the competitiveness of European industry.

Meeting with Marco Giorello (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology) and Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs and

19 Mar 2025 · Code of Conduct on Online Advertising – Workshop 4

Meeting with Michael Mcnamara (Member of the European Parliament)

18 Mar 2025 · European digital agenda

Meeting with Egelyn Braun (Cabinet of Commissioner Michael McGrath), Maria Zafra Saura (Cabinet of Commissioner Michael McGrath) and SAMMAN Cabinet d'avocats

17 Mar 2025 · Forthcoming Digital Fairness Act, data protection, simplification

Meeting with Marco Giorello (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology) and Apple Inc. and

13 Mar 2025 · Code of Conduct on Online Advertising – Workshop 3

Meeting with Marco Giorello (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology) and EuroCommerce and

6 Mar 2025 · Code of Conduct on Online Advertising – Workshop 2

Meeting with Marco Giorello (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology) and EuroCommerce and

4 Mar 2025 · Code of Conduct on Online Advertising – Workshop 1

Meeting with Sergey Lagodinsky (Member of the European Parliament)

20 Nov 2024 · Exchange of views

Meeting with Pierre Jouvet (Member of the European Parliament)

9 Oct 2024 · publicité en ligne

Meeting with Didier Reynders (Commissioner) and

6 Mar 2024 · GDPR, consumers

Meeting with Thierry Breton (Commissioner) and

6 Mar 2024 · Platform regulation

Response to Virtual worlds, such as metaverse

2 May 2023

Please see Criteo's contribution on virtual worlds attached
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Meeting with Gints Freimanis (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and Booking.com B.V. and

21 Jan 2022 · Discussion in light of the October OECD statement and the agreement on digital services taxes

Meeting with Eric Peters (Cabinet of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel)

6 Sept 2019 · économie numérique