Meta is studying charging its users located in the European Union about 13 euros per month for using Instagram or Facebook. Payment would be mandatory for those who do not accept the option to receive personalized ads; Those who accept will be able to continue as before. That is the response of the company led by Mark Zuckerberg to the siege that is being placed from Brussels on the non-consensual tracking of Internet users’ activity to serve them personalized advertising.
Meta executives transmitted this plan in September to the data protection authority of Ireland, the country where the technology giant has its European headquarters, and to the competition authorities in Brussels. This is what he revealed today The Wall Street Journal, which also indicates that Meta would intend to deploy the subscription plan “in the coming months.” According to the American newspaper, the rates would range from 10 euros for Instagram or Facebook from a computer to 13 from a mobile phone, adding an additional six euros for each associated account.
The measure is similar to what Elon Musk, owner of X, is considering implementing on his social network. Although, in the case of the old Twitter, the reason for demanding payment in exchange for use would be to combat the army of bots that inhabit the platform.
“Meta believes in the value of free services that are supported by personalized ads,” says a company spokesperson. “However, we continue to explore options to ensure we comply with changing regulatory requirements.”
Meta’s approach would seek to address the requirements of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to “put an end to unfair practices” by the giants of the digital economy. Meta is one of the six technological giants to which this regulation is directed, which subjects them to obligations such as having to facilitate interoperability or that users have the possibility of giving their consent (or not) before these platforms can exchange their data between services of the same company (for example between Facebook and WhatsApp).
Meta’s business model lives precisely by processing and exploiting that data. The detailed knowledge it has of the digital activity of each of its users is very valuable for advertisers, who pay to be able to reach very specific and limited profiles.
Meta estimates that its revenue in Europe amounted to about 17.07 euros per Facebook user in the second quarter of the year, or just about 5.73 euros per month on average per user across all its applications. The subscription plan revealed by The Wall Street Journal It has very similar rates.
The American company has several legal fronts open in Europe. The Irish data regulator imposed a fine of €1.2 billion in May, the largest in history, for violating privacy regulations. In February 2022, the company threatened to take Facebook and Instagram out of Europe if Brussels forced it to have to host data on European citizens in community territory.
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