The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has outlined its concerns about Meta's updated Consent or Pay business model, claiming that it may still violate EU consumer protection laws, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Following backlash from consumer groups over its original 2023 policy, which required Facebook and Instagram users to either consent to data use for advertising or pay a fee, Meta introduced a revised version at the end of 2024. However, BEUC argues that the new policy does not address key issues, including misleading practices and a confusing user interface. In addition, the BEUC criticised the superficial changes and urged EU authorities to investigate Meta's practices to ensure consumers can consent fully and freely to their data being processed, and not to degrade service quality for non-consenting users.
What is this page?
You are reading a summary article on the Privacy Newsfeed, a free resource for DPOs and other professionals with privacy or data protection responsibilities helping them stay informed of industry news all in one place. The information here is a brief snippet relating to a single piece of original content or several articles about a common topic or thread. The main contributor is listed in the top left-hand corner, just beneath the article title.
The Privacy Newsfeed monitors over 300 global publications, of which more than 5,750 summary articles have been posted to the online archive dating back to the beginning of 2020. A weekly roundup is available by email every Friday.
