A coalition of 28 organizations, including privacy activist Max Schrems’ group NOYB, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Wikimedia Europe, and the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, has issued a joint letter urging European privacy enforcers to oppose Meta Platforms’ paid no-ads subscription service introduced in Europe last November. The letter, addressed to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), argues that the “pay or okay” model, where users pay a fee for enhanced privacy, poses a threat to data protection standards and could set a precedent for other companies.
The EDPB is set to release guidance in the coming weeks on the consent or pay model, following a request from privacy watchdogs in the Netherlands, Norway, and Hamburg for the EU privacy regulator’s opinion. Meta has asserted that its service, applicable to Facebook and Instagram, aligns with EU rules, providing users with the choice of allowing their data to be used for targeted ads. Users who agree to be tracked receive a free service funded by advertising revenues.
The joint letter from the organizations warns that if the “pay or okay” approach is permitted, it could extend beyond news pages and social networks, becoming a widespread practice in any industry capable of monetizing personal data through user consent. The organizations argue that such a scenario would undermine the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the high European data protection standard established in 2016, and erode realistic safeguards against surveillance capitalism.
The letter expresses concern that Meta and other companies adopting similar models are aware that a majority of users may neither have the means nor the inclination to pay a fee. This collective opposition seeks to prevent the normalization of a “pay or okay” trend in the realm of data privacy, emphasizing the potential consequences for online privacy and the integrity of GDPR principles.
