Meta is suggesting to offer European users a subscription-based version of Instagram and Facebook if they would rather not be tracked for ads, a source said on Tuesday.
The opinion, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as the social media giant aims to comply with a growing list of EU regulations created to restrain the power of US big tech.
The firm established by Mark Zuckerberg makes billions of dollars in profit by offering advertisers highly individualized data on users, but new European regulations and EU court conclusions have made that more challenging.
The bid has been set to EU regulators and is another instance of big tech firms having to adapt long-held approaches to meet oncoming EU regulations.
The source relative to the matter said subscribers in Europe could spend 10 euros ($10.50) a month for a desktop version of Instagram or Facebook, or 13 euros a month for Instagram on their phones.
Social media platforms have increasingly floated the opinion of charging users for access to their sites, whether to comply with data privacy rules or better assure the identity of users.
However, the approach would be a significant shift for the social media industry that increased exponentially over the past decade on an advertising model that made the site free for users in return for being tracked and ads noticed as highly personalized.
The bid could allow the completion of several rules including the Digital Markets Act that sets a list of do’s and don’ts on big tech firms in Europe, including a ban on tracking users when they surf other sites if their approval hasn’t been granted.
It also follows the recommendation of the EU’s highest court, which in a July decision said that Meta platform users who denied being tracked should be proposed an ad-free alternative “for an appropriate fee.”
That judgment echoed many previous legislation against Meta and other big tech companies in which the court ruled that the US firm must ask for approval to gather enormous amounts of personal data, striking down different workarounds that Meta had offered.
Meta refused to comment directly on the Wall Street Journal report, but said in a statement that it still “believes in the value of free services which are backed by personalized ads.”
“However, we continue to explore options to ensure we comply with evolving regulatory requirements.”
Meta said second-quarter revenues of $32 billion, of which $31.5 billion came from advertising. Some $7.2bn of that came from Europe.
