Do you agree to be targeted with personalized advertisements or do you prefer to pay 10 to 15 euros per month? This is the choice that Meta plans to present in a few months to European users of Facebook and Instagram, which are currently free: the parent company of the two social networks has presented a paid subscription project to the European authorities, according to several articles of the American press.
This offer would allow you to use the services without seeing advertising. It would cost, according to Financial Times, around 10 euros per month (or 13, for the mobile version, to compensate for the commission charged by the Apple and Google application stores). THE Wall Street Journal speaks of 14 dollars per month (13.30 euros) and 17 dollars (16.20 euros) for access to both Facebook and Instagram.
Offering a subscription breaks with the habits of Mark Zuckerberg’s company. But, contrary to appearances, this idea is not a sign of a change in commercial strategy. “Meta believes in the virtues of free services financed by targeted advertising. However, we continue to explore options to ensure we comply with regulators’ requirements.”reacts a company spokesperson.
Legal motivation
Indeed, the company’s immediate motivation is first and foremost legal: the subscription was presented by Meta to the European Commission and to the data protection authority of Ireland (where its European headquarters is located) as a solution for compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To comply with this text applied since 2018, Meta considered that it was sufficient to present revised conditions of use to Internet users. Acceptance of this long contract was, according to her, agreement to receive targeted advertising. But the privacy defense association Noyb filed a complaint, in an attempt to force Instagram and Facebook to obtain the express consent of their users. And, at the start of 2023, the Irish data protection authority agreed: it fined Meta 390 million euros and ordered it to change its practices. In July, pressure on the company increased further when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), in another case, ruled that consent was mandatory.
On the defensive, Meta never admitted defeat. “The decisions do not require the collection of consent”, declared the company in January, ensuring that a “variety of other legal bases [était] possible “. Offering a paid subscription would be a way out for Meta. The company relies in particular on a small precision which did not escape it in the CJEU decision : the court writes that a service without targeted advertising must be offered, “if needed for an appropriate price”.
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