Meta breaches digital law by charging for ad-free social networks, EU says | Meta

[Pelican Press 0]

Meta breaches digital law by charging for ad-free social networks, EU says | Meta

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has breached the EU’s new digital laws with an advertising model that charges users for ad-free versions of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, according to the ********* Commission.

Meta launched a “pay or consent” model last year in an effort to comply with the bloc’s data privacy rules, under which users pay a monthly fee for an ad-free version of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

or

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

that does not use their personal data for advertising purposes. Users who do not pay consent, as part of the signing up process for the platforms, to their data being used to tailor personalised adverts that appear in their social media feeds.

The ********* Commission, the EU’s executive body, said the model did not comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is designed to rein in big tech companies. The commission issued preliminary findings from an investigation into “pay or consent” on Monday and found the model “forces users to consent” to their data being collected from multiple platforms. It also does not allow users to choose a service that uses less of their data but is broadly similar to the “with adverts” versions of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, the commission said.

“In the commission’s preliminary view, this binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalised but equivalent version of Meta’s social networks,” it said.

It said in order to comply with the DMA, Meta must launch “equivalent” versions of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

that use less of people’s data.

A Meta spokesperson said the new model had been designed to comply the DMA and other regulatory demands.

“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries, and we designed subscription for no ads to address several overlapping regulatory obligations, including the DMA. We will continue to engage constructively with the commission,” they said.

skip past newsletter promotion

Sign up to Business Today

Get set for the working day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

reCaptcha to protect our website and the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

apply.

after newsletter promotion

The commission must finish its investigation by the end of March next year and Meta faces a fine of up to 10% of global turnover –

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

– if it is deemed to have breached the act. The commission said last week that Apple had breached the DMA by restricting competition on its app store.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Meta #breaches #digital #law #charging #adfree #social #networks #Meta

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up