New York, USA.- European Union regulators have accused Meta Platforms of violating the bloc’s new digital competition rules by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them. Credit: AP
The European Union on Monday accused tech giant Meta of violating digital privacy rules with its payment model for keeping user data confidential.
“Meta forces millions of users across the EU into a binary choice: pay or consent to the use of their data. In our preliminary conclusion, this is a violation of the Digital Markets Act,” said European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton on the X network.
The system adopted by Meta to comply with the operating rules of digital platforms requires users to pay a monthly fee or accept the commercialization of their data for the purposes of personalizing advertising ads.
In a statement, the European Commission indicated that “this binary option forces users to accept the combination of their personal data but deprives them of a less personalized but equivalent version of the Meta social networks.”
Meta will now have time to respond to the Commission.
However, if the Commission finds that its position on the model is confirmed, it may apply a fine of up to 10 percent of Meta’s global revenues.
The legislation gives the Commission the power to raise the fine to 20 percent of global income in the event of a repeat offense, or even order the division of the companies.
The Digital Markets Law (LMD) is one of the EU pillars in regulating the sector, along with the Digital Services Law.
Under these two laws, the Commission determined that the largest platforms – which it calls “gatekeepers” – cannot force users to consent to the use of their data to access services or functions of the networks.
The Commission will take a decision on whether the Meta model is compatible with LMD or not by the end of March 2025.
#Meta #breaches #digital #privacy #rules
