Money or (private) life : Meta sued in court for its "privacy fees"

You prefer to pay in euros or in data?

October 30: Meta imposes new terms of use on European citizens for the Instagram and Facebook services. Users must now choose between:

using the service without targeted ads, with a monthly subscription (up to 12.99€);
using the service for free but keeping targeted ads.

To justify this change, Meta claimed to "believe in an internet funded by advertising, which allows users to access personalized products and services, regardless of their economic status."

The company also assured that this new proposal complies with data protection requirements. This is because a decision by the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) on July 4, 2023, had ruled out the possibility of using legitimate interest as a legal basis for processing data for personalized advertising. Indeed, the Court considered that Meta's dominant position did not exclude the possibility for this social media operator to validly obtain consent from its users for the processing of their data.

This decision by Meta did not go unnoticed. The privacy protection organization NOYB (None Of Your Business), founded by Max Schrems, filed a complaint on November 28 with the Austrian Data Protection Authority. The association accuses Meta of violating EU law because the imposed amount is unacceptable and because this practice would be an obstacle to freedom of consent.

With this new formula, the monthly subscription can indeed amount to 12.99 euros - for Facebook only. In addition, an additional 8 euros for each linked account (Instagram) are added. In total, this represents a bill of 251.88 euros per year for a person using both services.

8845.80 €

Annual 'confidentiality fees' for an average user (with 35 applications on their smartphone, according to Google's estimates) based on the fees applied by Facebook/Instagram.

Source: NOYB

It is important to remember that consent to the processing of personal data must be free, specific, informed, and unequivocal. Since users are unable or reluctant to pay, accepting targeted advertising becomes the only way out. It is thus the antithesis of free consent.

In France, this case is closely followed by the CNIL (National Commission on Informatics and Liberties), which stated to AFP that "while it is not the role of data protection authorities to set the price of a service, they can, however, control its relevance when this price is an alternative to targeted advertising."

The outcome of this complaint will be crucial for users, with a decision likely to send a strong message to all internet giants.

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[Cover photo: Jan Antonin Kolar]

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Money or (private) life : Meta sued in court for its "privacy fees"

You prefer to pay in euros or in data?

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