Meta will soon offer Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union a clear choice over whether they want to receive personalised advertising, the European Commission said on Monday, marking a key shift in the company’s approach to data use under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), as reported by Reuters.
In a statement, the Commission said Meta has agreed to give users “an effective choice between consenting to share all their data and seeing fully personalised advertising, and opting to share less personal data for an experience with more limited personalised advertising.”
The new options are expected to be rolled out for EU users in January.
Monday’s announcement follows months of pressure from Brussels. In June, the Commission warned Meta that it faced possible daily fines if it failed to make substantial changes to its “pay-or-consent” model — a system that required users either to accept personalised ads or pay for an ad-free experience.
Earlier this year, the company was fined 200 million euros ($234 million) after EU regulators found that Meta’s model had violated the DMA between November 2023 and November 2024.
By agreeing to offer users more control over how their data is used, Meta is seeking to address concerns that its earlier approach gave people no meaningful choice and breached the EU’s strict rules on gatekeeper platforms.
The Commission said it would continue to monitor the rollout of the new options to ensure full compliance with the DMA.
