EU says Meta violates rules on users’ personal data with targeted advertising

The European Union led the way on Monday 1^is July, to heavy financial sanctions against Meta, considering that the social networking champion did not respect European rules on the use of personal data for targeted advertising.

Meta is required to ask for users’ consent in order to combine data from its various services for advertising profiling purposes.

To comply, the American group offered Facebook and Instagram users a paid subscription which allows them to avoid being targeted by advertising. On the other hand, if they wish to maintain a free service, they must agree to provide their data.

“Meta has forced millions of users across the EU to make a binary choice: pay or consent. According to our preliminary findings, this is a violation” of the Digital Markets Regulation (DMA), Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton said on X. The DMA, which came into full force at the beginning of March, “is here to give European users back the power to decide on their data”he stressed.

Meta, for its part, claims that its subscription model “is DMA compliant”. “We look forward to continuing a constructive dialogue with the European Commission in order to close this investigation”said a spokesperson for the group.

Possible fine of 12 billion euros

The Commission considers, however, that Meta’s model does not comply with the EU regulation, in particular because it “does not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data” between its different platforms.

The European executive stressed, in a press release, that tech giants, like Meta, were able to “impose terms of service on their large user base that allowed them to collect significant amounts of personal data. This gave them potential advantages over their competitors”.

This opinion, formulated following the opening of an investigation on March 25, is the second indictment of a digital giant within the framework of the DMA. Last week, the European Commission singled out Apple for allegedly violating European competition rules.

Meta can now exercise its rights of defence by having access to the file and respond in writing to the preliminary findings. If these are confirmed, the Commission would adopt a final decision of non-compliance by the end of March 2025.

Meta could then face a fine of up to 10% of its global turnover, which reached around 125 billion euros last year: a sanction that could exceed 12 billion euros if the group of Mark Zuckerberg did not comply with EU rules.

The DMA, which allows us to act faster and stronger against competitive abuses by digital giants, was introduced to protect the emergence and growth of start-ups in Europe and offer more choice to consumers.

In addition to Apple, the new regulation applies to four other American giants – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft – but also to the social network TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, as well as to the Dutch reservation platform. Booking hotels. An investigation targeting Alphabet (Google) was also opened for violation of the DMA.