Users of Facebook and Instagram have to decide: either they take out a subscription or they can only use the platforms with personalized advertising. What is parent company Meta speculating on?
If you ask Instagram or Facebook users these days whether they noticed a notification pop-up, you always get the same answer: “I clicked away”, “I quickly accepted” or “I clicked on ‘ Yes’ pressed”. For a few days now, more and more users have been seeing the notice about “selection on the topic of advertising”.
Anyone who then follows the instructions can either continue to use Instagram or Facebook without advertising or should take out a subscription that costs between 9.99 and 12.99 euros per month. The prices vary depending on whether the subscription is taken out on the desktop or on the mobile phone, because Meta includes the 30 percent surcharge of the respective app stores from Google or Apple.
In the first four months, the subscription costs cover all of a user’s linked accounts. From March 1, 2024, six or eight euros will be due for each additional account. The regulation applies in the EU and four other countries.
Hesitant reaction to ECJ ruling
The US company says that this is, among other things, a reaction to a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). According to this, Meta and its platforms Instagram and Facebook have been violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for five years. This stipulates that users must actively consent before personal data can be collected and processed. Ultimately, users would be tracked meticulously on the platforms and a lot of personal data such as private interests, gender or usage times would be collected. Anyone who objects must, it is said, be offered “an equivalent alternative” that “does not involve such data processing operations.”
Meta has so far not taken care of this and argued that this consent had already been received with the approval of the general terms and conditions (GTC). But in January the Irish data protection authority imposed a fine of 390 million euros. In October, the European Data Protection Committee got involved and set a deadline. If Meta continued to fail to comply and fail to obtain clear consent from users, it could face high fines again.
Subscription is too expensive for many users
The users either agree to the tracking or pay a monthly “ad-free” subscription. But many users obviously find the 9.99 euros and more too expensive: such costs are “too high compared to other apps”, the advertising is “quite useful” or the services have already been used free of charge with advertising are the answers to a small survey by tagesschau.de in downtown Hamburg.
Do you want users to choose the free version? From a marketing perspective, the pop-up is designed in such a way that the ad-free option is easier to recognize, says Roland Eisenbrand, social media expert and editor-in-chief of the specialist service OMR. For example, the button is colored intensely blue, while the subscription function only has a white background. This means that users click on the advertising option more easily. “It at least seems as if we would like to get users to accept the free version with personalized advertising,” speculates Eisenbrand.
Just a formal alternative?
It is unclear what the subscription price is made up of. In the annual report, Meta shows, at least for Facebook, advertising revenue per user per month of the equivalent of around 5.50 euros. Meta responds to request from tagesschau.de just a general explanation. It says: “We will continue to advocate for an ad-supported Internet” and continues: “We respect the spirit and purpose of these evolving European regulations and are committed to complying with them.”
At least it seems as if Facebook and Instagram fear that many users will refuse tracking if they are clearly given a choice with a banner. The ad-free subscription now gives Meta the option to at least formally offer users an alternative.