How much is privacy worth? Is an annual subscription to a VPN responsible? Is it better to pay with your time and change the privacy settings on every website you visit? What is a fair price to pay to prevent data about who you are and how you behave from being used for advertising? Different companies have different answers. Yahoo offers ad-free email for $5 per month; Spotify charges double for commercial-free music. To be free from ads on YouTube, it costs $13.99, or even more.
This month, Meta will also set a monthly price on privacy for the first time. Right now, that price for people in Europe is €9.99 (€10.50), or €12.99 if they sign up on their phone.
This is a big change for Meta, a company that has long touted the benefits of an ad-supported Internet, arguing that it means everyone gets the same service no matter how much money they have. But privacy regulators in Europe are circling. A series of fines and lawsuits are putting the company in a corner, with regulators arguing it must change the way users consent to behavioral advertising. Meta’s final response? If people don’t like these ads, they can pay to opt out.
Meta will roll out the new ad-free subscription option at an unspecified date in November across the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. “We are confident that our product solution meets the evolving regulatory requirements in the EU,” said company spokesman Al Tolan. The subscription option will only be available to adults, while the company’s platforms will pause ads for those under 18.
But the plan has been met with consternation and threats of more legal action in Europe, where regulators and privacy activists say this is just Meta’s latest attempt to resist the real change needed to bring its products into compliance European privacy legislation. “Meta is desperately trying to find solutions to continue the current status quo,” said Tobias Judin, spokesperson for Norwegian privacy watchdog Datatilsynet.
For years, European courts have argued that Meta can’t use personal data for advertising unless the company gets free and explicit (yes or no) consent from the people using its services. In July, Norway, which is not a member of the EU but is a member of the European Economic Area, went further by declaring Meta’s behavioral advertising method illegal and imposing a ban. The country then began fining Meta $100,000 for each day it failed to comply. Today, that fine amounts to more than seven million dollars.