Meta Offers to Half Monthly Subscription Fee for Ad-Free Facebook, Instagram in EU

In an effort to allay worries from privacy and antitrust authorities, Meta Platforms has offered to practically drop its monthly subscription charge for Facebook and Instagram to approximately Rs. 540 from about Rs. 900, a senior Meta official announced on Tuesday.

The price reduction comes in response to growing criticism of Meta’s no-ads subscription service in Europe from consumer advocacy organisations and privacy advocates, who claim that users must pay a premium to protect their privacy.

In order to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which limits the company’s capacity to personalise ads for consumers without their knowledge and negatively impacts its main source of income, Meta introduced the service in November.

According to the firm, the price model aims to strike a compromise between the competing requirements of the DMA and EU privacy rules.

Tim Lamb, a lawyer representing Meta, stated during a European Commission hearing, “We have wanted to accelerate that process for some time because we need to get to a steady state... So we have offered to drop the price from Rs. 907 to Rs. 543 for a single account and Rs. 363 for any additional accounts.”

"For services of this kind, that is by far the lowest end of the price range that a sensible individual should be paying. And that seems like a sincere offer to me. There is currently regulatory uncertainty, which needs to disappear rapidly.”