European Commission shoots down Facebook’s “pay or consent” model

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act is the gift that keeps on giving. This time, it’s Facebook’s turn to be slapped on the fingers with a ruler – a metric ruler, of course – because of its malicious compliance with the DMA.

Today, the Commission has informed Meta of its preliminary findings that its “pay or consent” advertising model fails to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In the Commission’s preliminary view, this binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalised but equivalent version of Meta’s social networks.
↫ European Commission press release

The European Commission’s preliminary conclusion takes issue with Facebook’s binary choice between “pay for zero ads” and “full-on tracking and all the ads”. According to the DMA, Facebook must offer users the option of an equivalent experience with less tracking, and the company doesn’t offer such an option to users. In addition, Facebook’s proposal does not allow users to “exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data”.

It’s important to note that this is not some sort of definitive ruling of finding; it’s preliminary, and Facebook now has the opportunity to state its case and formulate its arguments. If the eventual ruling is that Facebook does not comply, the company is liable for fines up to 10% of its yearly worldwide turnover, which can rise up to 20% for repeated infractions.