Once again, Meta flouts the law and thinks it can get away with it
I’ve just come across the statement that appears when you open Meta applications such as Instagram or Facebook, offering users the ‘choice’ of paying 12.99€ a month for an ad-free experience or carry on being subjected to ultra-targeted advertisements.
As can be seen, Meta claims the need to choose one or the other is due to EU regulations. What Meta is actually doing is deliberately misinterpreting the law so it can continue doing what it was doing, knowing that very few people will take up the offer, and thus being able to argue that people are quite happy with a free service in return for ads.
It’s worth unravelling what’s going on here: European law, specifically Norwegian law, has stated, under threat of a fine, is not that the company has to offer an ad-free option, but that the type of advertising it displays is harmful and illegal, and that the data it collects is private and must be protected. This is precisely what Europe is saying, and that Meta seems to be unable to understand and seems to be ignoring like if it was written in some foreign language
