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The European Commission said on July 1 that it had preliminarily determined that Meta, the parent company of the American social media giant Facebook, had violated EU regulations for its paid exemption advertising policy, and the latter could be fined for it.
Meta has social media platforms such as "Facebook" and "Instagram". Starting in November last year, Meta launched a "pay or agree" plan. This means that users in the EU may choose to pay a monthly subscription to the ad-free versions of these social media platforms or receive personalized ads from the platform. Desktop browsers and mobile users need around €10 and €13 per month, respectively, which is about 78 yuan and 102 yuan, respectively.
The European Commission said the "either-or" approach violated the EU's Digital Markets Act, which came into force in March this year. The European Union began investigating Meta's practices shortly after the law came into force, and it will end by March next year at the latest. If the EU ultimately finds Meta to have violated the law, it could impose a fine of up to 10% of the company's annual global revenue. According to Agence France-Presse, Meta's global revenue last year was about 135 billion US dollars (about 981 billion yuan).
Meta responded on the same day that the practice of paying for free ads is in line with the Digital Markets Act, and hopes to have a more constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring the investigation to a conclusion.
Previously, on June 24, the European Commission had preliminarily ruled that Apple's online app store rules in the United States violated the EU's Digital Markets Act. If found to be in violation, Apple will also face a fine of up to 10% of the company's annual global revenue.
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Editor: Angel