Meta is presenting UK users of Facebook and Instagram with a stark new dilemma: hand over your data for targeted ads, or hand over your money for a subscription. This “data or money” choice is the foundation of the company’s new ad-free service, designed to resolve a long-running standoff with UK data protection regulators.
The price of choosing money over data is set at £3.99 per month for mobile users and £2.99 per month for web users. By paying, users can remove all advertising from their linked accounts. By not paying, they implicitly agree to continue the existing arrangement where their online behaviour is analysed to serve them personalised ads.
This new framework has been accepted by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The watchdog sees this binary choice as legally compliant because it offers a clear alternative to the previous system, where users had no option but to agree to data processing for ads. The ICO believes this gives users meaningful control, as required by UK law.
However, European Union regulators have fundamentally rejected this dilemma. The European Commission fined Meta €200m, ruling that forcing users to choose between their privacy (data) and their money is coercive and violates the Digital Markets Act. The EU argues for a third option: a free service that respects privacy by default.
For UK users, the choice is now unavoidable. The regulatory solution championed by the ICO is one that directly confronts them with the commercial value of their personal information. They must now decide each month whether the price of privacy is worth paying, or if the convenience of a free service is worth the cost of their data.