EU accuses Facebook owner Meta of breaking digital rules with paid ad-free option
- The company could face fines worth 10 per cent of its annual global revenues for breaching the Digital Markets Act
European Union regulators accused social media company Meta Platforms on Monday of breaching the bloc’s new digital competition rule book by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.
Meta began giving European users the option in November of paying for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram as a way to comply with the continent’s strict data privacy rules.
Users can pay at least 10 euros (US$10.75) a month to avoid being targeted by ads based on their personal data.
The US tech giant rolled out the option after the European Union’s top court ruled Meta must first get consent before showing ads to users, in a decision that threatened its business model of tailoring ads based on individual users’ online interests and digital activity.
Meta’s model does not allow users to exercise their right to “freely consent” to allowing their personal data from its various services, including Facebook, Instagram, Marketplace, WhatsApp and Messenger, to be combined to target them with personalised online ads, the commission said.
Meta’s model also does not give users the option of a service that is less personalised but still equivalent to its social networks, it said.
