2023-11-09 05:30:00
Among users, the two platforms mention “the evolution of laws” to justify their paid subscription. In reality, this follows legal decisions condemning Meta, their parent company.
In France, as in all countries of the European Union, Facebook and Instagram are broadcasting an unprecedented message to say the least: it invites users to pay 13 euros per month (or 10 euros per month on computer) to access the two platforms belonging to at the Meta company.
A rather high price, which the message justifies by “an evolution of the laws”. In reality, the law implying the arrival of this paid offer is the GDPR, European regulation on personal data, in force since… May 2018.
Non-compliance with GDPR
In fact, paid subscriptions from Facebook and Instagram are more a result of potentially illicit practices than a change in legislation. And in particular Meta’s non-compliance with the GDPR, which governs the collection of personal data of Internet users by online platforms.
Among the possibilities mentioned by European law to make such collection legal is obtaining user consent. This is something Meta has always wanted to avoid, so as not to risk facing massive refusals and significant losses of income.
For five years, Meta therefore juggled with other possibilities offered by the GDPR, in specific frameworks, such as the possibility of collecting Internet users’ data if this was essential for the execution of a contract.
Judicial setbacks
Meta thus tried to convince the European authorities that the acceptance of its conditions of use by the user constitutes a contract to be respected, by collecting their data, but without success: Meta was sentenced at the end of 2022 to a fine of 390 million of euros by the Irish personal data policeman.
At the start of 2023, Meta subsequently pleaded the notion of “legitimate interest”, provided for by the GDPR, by trying to convince that the distribution of targeted was essential to the proper functioning of Facebook and Instagram. Again without success: in July 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union finally imposed it is up to Facebook to obtain the consent of its users, still under the 2018 GDPR.
European justice, however, considered that the alternative to consent might be the payment of an “appropriate” sum, inspiring Meta to adopt its new paid subscription. But with a bill from 10 to 13 euros per monthfor European users reporting on average 6 euros per month through their personal data, the Irish personal data police might consider this sum too large. And force Meta to lower its prices.
Asked by Tech&Co to specify which new law the message broadcast on Facebook and Instagram referred to, Meta did not respond.
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