Pay for Privacy? Meta’s Ad-free Service Under the Microscope
BRUSSELS: Meta Platforms’ paid ad-free subscription service, launched in Europe this month, faced one of its biggest tests when advocacy group NOYB filed a complaint with an Austrian regulator on Tuesday, saying it amounted to paying a fee for privacy.
Meta announced the service for Facebook and Instagram last month. It said the move was in line with EU rules, which require users to be given the option to choose whether their data can be collected and used for targeted advertising.
The ad-free service costs €9.99 ($10.90) per month for web users and €12.99 for iOS and Android users. Meta has said that the subscription model is a valid form of consent for an advertising-funded service and that it was in line with the decision of the European Supreme Court in July.
Users can choose a free, ad-supported service.
Vienna-based NOYB (None Of Your Business), a digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, said it disagreed with Meta on the concept of consent.
“EU legislation requires that the consent is the genuine free will of the user. Contrary to this law, Meta charges a ‘privacy fee’ of up to 250 euros per year if someone dares to use their basic right to data protection,” NOYB’s data protection lawyer Felix Mikolasch said in a statement.
NOYB filed a complaint with the Austrian Data Protection Authority. It also criticized the size of the payment.
“Not only is the cost unacceptable, but industry figures suggest that only 3 percent of people want to be tracked — while more than 99 percent do not exercise their choice when faced with a ‘privacy fee,'” the group said. “If Meta can pull this off, competitors will soon follow in its footsteps.”
Meta said: “The ability for people to purchase an ad-free subscription balances the demands of European regulators while giving users choice and allowing Meta to continue to serve all people in the EU, EEA and Switzerland.”
Meta’s spokesperson pointed out that the pricing was in line with similar subscription offers in Europe.
Netflix charges 7.99 euros for the basic subscription, Alphabet’s YouTube Premium about 12 euros and Spotify’s Premium service about 11 euros.
NOYB, which has filed hundreds of complaints against major tech companies from Alphabet to Google to Meta for data breaches, called on the Austrian data protection authority to launch an accelerated process to stop Meta and also impose a fine.
The complaint will likely be forwarded to Ireland’s data protection authority, which oversees Meta as its European headquarters are in Ireland.
