The US technology giant meta platforms intends to launch a new service on the social media platform Instagram without ads for a monthly subscription of 10 euros for users in Europe.
The Wall Street Journal reported that meta, which owns the platforms Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, is in talks with the Data Protection Authority of the European Union about the possibility of introducing a paid service from Instagram and Facebook in the EU countries.
On the other hand, users who do not want to pay the monthly subscription will have to receive targeted ads according to their personal characteristics, which means that meta will follow their online activities to find out their preferences.
This proposal by Meta addresses European rules that could affect advertising methods targeted according to the personal characteristics of users of the American company’s platforms.
According to the Press report, meta told European officials that it intends to impose a monthly subscription of up to 10 euros (53.10 dollars) on Instagram and Facebook users who do not want to receive ads on their pages and who log in to their accounts via computers, while a fee of up to 6 euros will be charged for each additional linked account. The subscription value will be higher for users of Apple devices due to the fact that Apple receives an additional fee.
It is noteworthy that personality-oriented ads represent a large part of the revenue of internet service companies such as meta, and they rely on leveraging user data to determine which ads can appear on their account.
