Meta Considers Subscription Service in the UK Following Privacy Settlement

Meta may roll out an ad-free subscription service in the UK, following a settlement with a UK-based user who filed suit over Facebook using her data for targeted ads.

The company didn’t provide a timeline for the new feature but said it “will share further information in due course,” The Guardian reports.

At issue is a 2022 lawsuit filed by Tanya O’Carroll, a senior fellow at Foxglove Legal focused on tech accountability, human rights and social justice. She claimed that Meta breached UK data regulations because it failed to respect her right to demand that Facebook stop collecting and processing her data to target her with personalized ads.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), a UK watchdog, sided with O’Carroll, saying in a statement that “People have the right to object to their personal information being used for direct marketing, and [that] if people believe that an organization is not complying with their request to stop processing their data, they can file a complaint to us.”

On X, O’Carroll says, “I believe this is a victory not just for me but for every UK and EU citizen as it paves the way for the right to object to be used to stand up to surveillance-advertising across the web.”

Meta said it “fundamentally” disagreed with O’Carroll’s claims, but would explore the subscription option to avoid similar complaints in the future, The Guardian says.

Meta launched an ad-free service in the European Union in October 2023, following a ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2023. The service costs roughly $10.50 per month for desktop users, but subscribing on an Android or iOS device costs a few dollars more.

A US rollout of an ad-free service is unlikely. A Bloomberg report from 2023 found that an ad-free Meta subscription would cost roughly $240 per year to make up the lost revenue from advertisers. Bloomberg estimated that Meta makes about $220 per user each year in the US and Canada through ad sales.

Other big tech giants, like TikTok, have toyed with the idea of launching ad-free subscription models in recent years. However, research indicates that the vast majority of users are still happy to put up with ads if it means a free experience. A 2021 survey by PrivacyHQ found that only 27.1% of users would be willing to pay for an ad-free experience.

About Will McCurdy

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I’m a reporter covering weekend news. Before joining PCMag in 2024, I picked up bylines in BBC News, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Daily Beast, Vice, Slate, Fast Company, The Evening Standard, The i, TechRadar, and Decrypt Media.

I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.

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