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Meta said on Tuesday it will offer cheaper ad-free subscriptions to Facebook and Instagram users in Europe and a new free access option with less personalized advertising.
Why it matters: The shift is a response to “demands from EU regulators,” even though the changes “go beyond what is required in the law,” the company said in a statement.
- While Meta argues users and businesses prefer personalized ads — especially as a tradeoff for access to free services — European regulators argue the company’s ad-targeting practices don’t do enough to adhere to its rules that restrict the amount of consumer data used to target ads.
Driving the news: Meta pledged to reduce the price of Facebook and Instagram subscriptions for its no-ads tier by 40%, from €9.99 to €5.99/month on the web, or from €12.99 to €7.99/month on iOS and Android.
- It will also offer users in the EU a new access option that allows them to use Facebook and Instagram for free with less personalized ads.
- “In the less personalized option, we will use significantly less data to show ads, so ads may be less relevant to a person’s interests,” the company’s statement said.
The big picture: Meta has long held the position that personalized ads support a vibrant internet economy by providing free services for billions of people around the world.
- The company said Tuesday it will “continue to advocate for regulations that support the responsible use of personalized advertising, allowing us to maintain the high-quality, free services that people have come to expect from us.”
Go deeper… Scoop: Meta won’t offer future multimodal AI models in EU