In its confrontation with Brussels, Meta makes a concession: its social networks Facebook and Instagram will offer their users the possibility of viewing “less personalized ads”, the company announced on Tuesday, November 12. European regulators have been requiring the company to seek consent from Internet users before showing them targeted advertising based on their personal data for many months. And, if they refuse, offer them a free option with non-targeted advertising, which Meta has refused so far.
Specifically, the new option will be offered to users of the two social networks. “in the coming weeks”with a notification message offering a choice. “These less personalized ads rely on less data, so we will show ads based solely on context, that is, on the content viewed by a person during a visit to Facebook or Instagram, and on a minimal amount of data, including the person’s age, location, gender and how they interact with the ads.”, explains the company.
Without hiding its preference for targeted advertising, Meta warns that “The ads will thus be less relevant and adapted to the interests of users, who will see ads that they consider less interesting.”
Deficit
Above all, Meta warns that this option will be accompanied by “ad breaks”, WHO “cannot be interrupted for a few seconds”. Like television advertisements, these formats “they are common on other platforms”justifies Meta, referring to YouTube in particular. This evolution aims to compensate for the lower economic value of less targeted advertisements sold at a lower price to advertisers. Allowing European users to opt out of targeted advertising, which is at the heart of Meta’s business model, could result in a loss of revenue.
To avoid this, Mark Zuckerberg’s company had the idea, in 2023, of offering a version without advertising but accessible only by subscription, not for free. This sparked criticism from consumer associations, accusing Meta of charging for privacy. The European Commission also opened an investigation in July, considering that this subscription constituted a violation of legislation on digital markets – or Digital Markets Act (DMA).
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