(DailyDig.com) – In November, Meta introduced an option for users that live in European Union countries to avoid ads while using Facebook and Instagram.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA), an EU law, aims to prevent large tech companies from coercing users into accepting service terms they would not typically agree to. This law was specifically inclusive of any attempt to collect the users’ personal information. The EU’s main goal of the new law was to protect users from turning over their personal information in order to use the product.
Regulators state that the law mandates tech companies to provide users with a choice between using their personal information to target ads they may be interested in or refusing to collect personal information and receiving non-targeted ads.
In November, Meta unveiled a plan to comply with DMA, offering users the option to opt out of personal information collection for an ad-free account at a subscription fee of 12.99 euros. The user may choose to pay for a subscription or agree to the collection of their personal information for targeted ads.
On July 1, the regulators for the EU stated that the subscription plan from Meta was actually a scheme to make their users pay the fee, give Meta access to their personal information, or not use their product. This was not a solution to the DMA law, as it gave the users no choice other than forcing them to pay for their privacy or not use Meta’s products. EU authorities claim that the plan violated the DMA, aimed at limiting the power of big tech companies over their users.
According to a statement by Meta, their plan does comply with the DMA law by allowing users to choose whether to collect personal information. The statement included a claim that they would meet with regulators in order to resolve the differences between their law and Meta’s plan.
The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, will continue its investigation, with a completion date of March next year.
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