How much is privacy worth? Is an annual VPN subscription justified? Is it better to pay with your time by changing the privacy settings on every website you visit? What is the right price to prevent data about your identity and behavior from being used to inform ads? Different companies have different answers. Yahoo offers ad-free messaging for $5 a month; for ad-free music, Spotify charges double. To have no ads on YouTube, it’s $13.99 or more.
This month, for the first time, Meta will also be put a monthly price on privacy. Right now, for Europeans, that price is €9.99 ($10.50), or €12.99 if they sign up on their phone.
This is a major 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, regardless of how much money they spend which he has. But privacy regulators in Europe are going around in circles. A series of fines and lawsuits are putting the company in a bind, with regulators saying it needs to change how it gets users to 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 in the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland at an unspecified date in November. “We are confident that our product solution complies with the constantly evolving legal requirements in the EU,” said company spokesperson Al Tolan. The subscription option will only be available for adults, while the company’s platforms will be suspend ads for people under 18 years old.
But the plan has sparked consternation and even more threats of legal action in Europe, where regulators and privacy activists say it is just Meta’s latest attempt to resist the real change needed to make its products compliant with European privacy law. “Meta is desperately trying to find solutions to maintain the current status quo,” says Tobias Judin, a spokesperson for Norwegian privacy watchdog Datatilsynet.
For years, European courts have held that Meta cannot use personal data for advertising purposes without obtaining the free and explicit consent – yes or no – of the people who use its services. In July, Norway, which is not a member of the EU but of the European Economic Area, went further, calling the way Meta carries out behavioral advertising illegal and imposing a ban. The country then began fining Meta $100,000 for each day he failed to comply. Today, that fine stands at more than $7 million.
