Meta Could Look To Offer UK Users an Ad-Free Subscription to Its Apps

Meta may soon look to expand its ad-free subscription offering to the U.K., after settling with an individual user who objected to her data being used for ad targeting in the app.

In the original case, brought against Meta back in 2022, U.K. human rights campaigner Tanya O’Carroll argued that she has a legal right to object to the use of her personal data for direct marketing, as per U.K. consumer laws. Meta argued that its targeted ads don’t qualify as direct marketing, but it’s now reached a settlement agreement, which will ensure that O’Carroll herself will not have her data used by Meta for ad targeting purposes.

Which is a smaller victory than O’Carroll had hoped for, as it doesn’t establish this right within law, but rather meets the technical requirements of this individual case. But even so, it could establish the precedent that U.K. users do have the right to opt out of having their personal information used for ad targeting.

And in order to mitigate any similar cases in future, Meta could look to give U.K. users the right to opt out, for a fee, as it does in EU.

Though that hasn’t exactly been a simple alternative in Europe either, with various advisory groups arguing that Meta’s ad-free subscription undermines the focus of the GDPR, and its protections against “data capitalism.” 

That’s forced Meta to cut the price of the offering, in order to appease EU regulators, and win broad support for the alternative. But really, the case there also remains unsettled, and as such, offering the same in the U.K. could also lead to further challenges to Meta’s mitigation process.

It’s an interesting case study either way, and I suspect that Meta will take a wait-and-see approach before deciding on whether to expand access to its ad-free subscription model, though I also think that the vast majority of people will opt to use Facebook and IG for free, rather than pay to get rid of ads.

Though that’s really the core of the argument, that as a legal right, users shouldn’t have to pay to enact it.

Expect to see further challenges on this in future.