Report from The Times
In Brief – Meta has announced that it will offer ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram by subscription in Great Britain. The move follows settlement of a privacy lawsuit brought by digital accountability advocate Tanya O’Connell and discussions with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the country’s privacy and data security regulator. The company settled the litigation and began plans for an ad-free subscription following the ICO’s adopting a policy on online tracking and targeted ads that supported the legal arguments behind Ms. O’Connell’s suit. Meta’s UK subscriptions will be priced at £2.99 per month when bought on the web and £3.99 per month when bought on iOS and Android devices. Users with multiple accounts will be able to add extra ones for £1 per month less. Data privacy campaigners who oppose targeted ads expressed opposition to Meta’s plan because the company is not simply offering users the choice of ads that are not personalized.
Context – Meta is the digital company that has been most willing to forcefully defend personalized advertising as being more efficient and valuable than traditional ads for small businesses with small ad budgets, and also for consumers, who receive ads for goods and services they are more likely interested in. That has put the company in the crosshairs of anti-advertising activists, especially in the EU. Meta proposed ad-free paid subscriptions in the EU in response to GDPR litigation, basing the plan on a prior opinion of the European Court of Justice. Opponents argued that a binary choice was unfair. The European Commission then ruled that the Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires Meta to offer a third option, a free version with ads that are not individually targeted. The company appealed the ruling and argues that it unfairly renders their ad network far less effective and valuable. An Austrian court has applied a similar policy beyond Meta and DMA “gatekeepers”, ruling that Der Spiegel violated the GDPR when it offered its website users the binary option of an ad-free subscription for €9.90 per month or a free version that with targeted ads.