Meta Platforms—European Commission fined Meta €200 million under Digital Markets Act for 'consent or pay' advertising model
The European Commission issued its first-ever Digital Markets Act fine, finding Meta's 'consent or pay' model violated DMA obligations to give consumers a choice of service using less personal data. Meta offered EU users of Facebook and Instagram only a binary choice between consenting to full data combination for personalized ads or paying a subscription. Internal documents revealed the model 'was never intended to comply' with the DMA, with Meta's own estimates predicting below 1% subscription uptake. The violation period ran from March to November 2024.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antitrust & Competition | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| User Privacy | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.664 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
European Commission issued first-ever DMA fine of €200M against Meta for 'consent or pay' model
The European Commission found Meta's binary 'consent or pay' advertising model violated DMA obligations to offer users a service using less personal data. Internal documents revealed the model was 'never intended to comply' with the DMA, with Meta estimating below 1% subscription uptake. The fine covered the violation period from March to November 2024. Meta announced it would appeal.