Last October, Meta announced that users living in the European Union, the member states of the European Economic Area, and Switzerland can use Facebook and Instagram in a subscription model without advertisements. Since November, the solution has come under numerous attacks from both legal and consumer advocates, including the hefty price of advertising exemption.
At the beginning of the year, Meta submitted the offer for the reduced fee to the regulatory authorities, followed by negotiations with the data protection authorities on the matter. After that, the social media giant’s lawyer informed the European Commission in March of this year that the company offers to reduce the subscription costs in order to comply with the DMA, which will now have results in practice.
The social giant announcement it is already official that the price of the ad-free subscription versions of Facebook and Instagram will be reduced by 40 percent for EU users in order to meet the regulatory requirements of the region, this is already valid. Thus, instead of the previous 9.99 euros (approx. HUF 4,000), you have to pay “only” EUR 5.99 (approx. HUF 2,500) for desktop computers, and instead of EUR 12.99 (approx. HUF 5,300), you have to pay 7, 99 euros (approx. HUF 3,300) for users of iOS and Android devices. According to the company, the announced changes not only comply with EU requirements, but also go beyond what is required by EU law.
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If users choose the less personalized but still free option to access social media sites, they will see ads that are “less relevant to that person’s interests,” Meta added. In this case, the algorithm that recommends advertisements works from a minimal amount of data points, but you have to put up with the inconvenience of unskippable advertisements.
According to Pedro Pavón, Meta’s global policy director, while EU regulators make it difficult for companies based on online advertising to operate in the region, the business practice of personalized advertising is the “foundation of the modern free internet” and allows people to “seamlessly and undisturbedly connect with the brands and products most relevant to them”.
Even in the month of the announcement of the ad-free packages, the advocates of the noyb legal protection organization also prepared a submission to the Irish data protection board, which attacked the idea that the service provider is asking for money so that European users can exercise their fundamental rights. Other critics have criticized the hefty fee itself, saying that users can get rid of ads for €9.99 a month.
Source: www.hwsw.hu
