Paid subscriptions or “paywalls” to avoid being targeted by advertising are multiplying on the media and social networks. For a long time, publishers of free content on the Internet made money through targeted advertising. The two Web giants Google and Facebook, which have made it their economic model but also media sites and a multitude of online services, did not charge anything, but discreetly recorded as much personal data as possible during each visit, so to draw up a precise profile of their visitors.
These profiles were then sold at auction to brands, allowing them to display advertisements geared to consumers’ interests. In 2018, the entry into force of the GDPR in the European Union (EU) shook up this booming economy, by establishing the obligation to obtain prior free consent from the user (excluding contractual provisions or “interest legitimate “).
Meta, first major platform to offer a paid subscription
Five years later, “cookie” banners have become the norm and allow you to refuse advertising tracking with just a few clicks. Studies show that when questioned, Internet users largely prefer to refuse to share their data.
But for Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for many newspapers already affected by the drop in advertising revenue on paper, and for new applications like TikTok, there is too much to lose by letting Internet users refuse advertising for free. targeted. Hence the idea of a paid subscription.
Meta, which has been offering its subscription on Facebook and Instagram since November, is the first major social platform to have chosen this formula. The group is today the target of several complaints in Austria and Brussels and is the subject of a report in France to the DGCCRF.
X or YouTube (Google) take different approaches by offering additional paid features or allowing you to opt out of targeting for free. Tiktok has only yet confirmed the testing of a subscription in Europe. “If Meta succeeds, its competitors will soon follow suit,” fears Austrian lawyer Max Schrems, nicknamed “the bane of Gafa.”
The paywall “is a good thing because it enhances advertising”
According to a study published on November 26, 431 sites use a “paywall”. 27% are media, which had largely taken the lead, but the practice is becoming widespread. 317 sites are in Germany, where Internet users can purchase a “contentpass” at 3 euros/month for all sites, 42 in France, 27 in Italy and 22 in Austria.
For Nicolas Rieul, president of IAB France, which brings together digital advertising players, the proposition of a subscription “is a good thing because it enhances advertising, which allows content producers and online services to be remunerated” , he declared during the Digital Alliance Forum in Paris. The system, however, “does not apply to everyone”, particularly in the online commerce sector where stores have every interest in not preventing their free consultation.
No harmonization at European level
Is this a legal practice? The president of Meta in France and Southern Europe, Laurent Solly, did not wish to comment on the complaints against the level considered excessive of the subscription on his platform (from 9.99 euros per month). “The ability for people to purchase a subscription without advertising balances the requirements of European regulators while giving users a choice,” the social media giant argued at the end of October.
In the absence of harmonization at European level, the position on “cookie walls” varies depending on the Member States, between prohibition in Belgium and authorization under strict conditions (Germany, Italy).
In France, the CNIL, which initially wanted to ban “cookie walls”, had to adopt a more nuanced position, particularly for the media following a decision by the Council of State in 2020. “It does not belong to the authorities data protection to set the price of a service, they can however control its relevance when this price is the alternative to advertising targeting,” she indicates.