{"id":25862,"date":"2024-07-01T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/108000133"},"modified":"2024-07-01T12:00:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T12:00:06","slug":"meta-accused-of-breaching-eu-antitrust-rules-over-ad-supported-subscription-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/meta-accused-of-breaching-eu-antitrust-rules-over-ad-supported-subscription-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta accused of breaching EU antitrust rules over ad-supported subscription service"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/meta-accused-of-breaching-eu-antitrust-rules-over-ad-supported-subscription-service.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-106998114\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>Investors are staying on the sidelines amid a broad selloff in tech stocks this year. Shares of Facebook parent Meta are down more than 30% this year amid a troubling macro environment and weaker-than-expected results.<\/p>\n<p>Igor Golovniov | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Facebook parent company <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\"><span class=\"waslinkname\">Meta<\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> was on Monday accused by EU regulators of failing to comply with the bloc&#8217;s landmark antitrust rules over its recently introduced ad-supported social networking service.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission labelled the ad-supported subscription option a &#8220;pay or consent&#8221; model \u2014 which means users have to either pay to use Meta&#8217;s platforms ad-free, or consent to their data being processed for personalized advertising. The service was <span class=\"waslinkname\">introduced for Facebook and Instagram in Europe last year<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the Commission&#8217;s preliminary view, this binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalised but equivalent version of Meta&#8217;s social networks,&#8221; regulators said in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n<p>A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that its ad-supported subscription model &#8220;follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close,&#8221; the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Meta introduced the new model in response to a ruling from the European Court of Justice, the EU&#8217;s top court, last year that a company may offer an &#8220;alternative&#8221; version of its service that does not rely on data collection for ads.<\/p>\n<p>Meta has <span class=\"waslinkname\">previously pointed to this ruling<\/span> as a reason for introducing the subscription offer.<\/p>\n<p>In its statement Monday, the Commission said that Meta&#8217;s ad-supported offering failed to comply with the DMA for two key reasons: one is that it doesn&#8217;t let users opt for a service that uses less personal data but is still equivalent to the &#8220;personalized ads&#8221;-based service.<\/p>\n<p>Regulators said users should still be entitled to &#8220;get access to an equivalent service which uses less of their personal data, in this case for the personalization of advertising.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The other reason cited by the EU is that the Meta ad-supported service doesn&#8217;t allow users to exercise their right to &#8220;freely consent&#8221; for their personal data to be used to target them with online ads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"ArticleBody-subtitle\">Hefty fines at stake<\/h2>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>The EU&#8217;s Digital Markets Act, or DMA, officially became enforceable in March this year. The law aims to clamp down on anti-competitive practices from large digital companies, as well as to force them to open up some of their services to rivals.<\/p>\n<p>Companies can face potentially massive fines under the DMA and can end up paying as much as 10% of their global annual revenue. For repeated breaches, that figure could rise to 20%.<\/p>\n<p>In Meta&#8217;s case, if it were to be found in breach of the DMA in the Commission&#8217;s final findings, it could be slapped with a penalty as high as $13.4 billion, based on the company&#8217;s 2023 annual earnings numbers.<\/p>\n<p>After receiving the EU&#8217;s preliminary findings, Meta now has a chance to defend itself in writing.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission&#8217;s investigation, which was launched in March in tandem with two other probes into tech giants Apple and Alphabet, will conclude within 12 months from the opening proceedings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investors are staying on the sidelines amid a broad selloff in tech stocks this year. Shares of Facebook parent Meta are down more than 30% this year amid a troubling macro environment and weaker-than-expected results. Igor Golovniov | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images Facebook parent company Meta was on Monday accused by EU &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-25862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","has-thumb","has-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25862"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=25862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}