Meta’s decision to offer ad-free subscriptions in the European Union (EU) has faced a fresh setback after regulators accused the social media giant of breaching the bloc’s competition rules by forcing users to choose between viewing ads or paying to avoid them.
The European Commission has said that the company’s “pay or consent” advertising model is in breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“This binary choice forces users to consent to the pooling of their personal data and does not provide them with a less personalized but equivalent version of Meta’s social networks,” the Commission said. said.
It also states that gatekeeper companies should seek users’ permission to combine their personal data between designated core platform services and other services (such as advertising), and that users who opt out should have access to to a less personalized but equivalent alternative. .
On top of all that, Meta’s approach does not allow users to choose a service that uses less of their personal data, saying that it does not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their data from its services in order to target them to personalized online about appeared, the commission reported.
“Users who do not provide consent should still be able to access an equivalent service that uses less of their personal data, in this case to personalize advertising,” it added.
Meta announced for the first time its plans to enable ad-free access to Facebook and Instagram for users from the EU, European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland in October 2023 as a way to comply with the region’s strict privacy laws.
It was also in response to a European Court of Justice ruling last year that the company could offer an “alternative” version of its service that didn’t rely on data collection for advertising.
But in the intervening months, the American tech giant did just that faced criticism for essentially offering no real choice for customers, instead forcing them to either agree to be tracked for advertising purposes or pay each month to avoid seeing personalized ads.
“European users now have a ‘choice’ to either agree to personalized advertising tracking or pay up to €251.88 per year to maintain their fundamental right to data protection on Instagram and Facebook,” said Austrian privacy non-profit Noyb. said at the end of last year.
“Not only is the cost unacceptable, but industry figures show that only 3 percent of people want to be tracked, while more than 99 percent choose not to pay when faced with a ‘privacy fee.’
If the preliminary findings are confirmed, Meta could be fined up to 10% of the total global turnover, a figure that could reach 20% for systematic violations of the rules.
“The ad-free subscription complies with the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA,” Meta quoted in statement shared with the Associated Press. He also said he would engage in a “constructive dialogue” with the Commission as part of the investigation.
The development is in accordance with the Norwegian court confirmed that online dating app Grindr violated the EU’s GDPR data protection laws by sharing user data with advertisers, requiring it to pay a €5.7 million ($6.1 million) fine.
