- Facebook and Instagram will soon offer an ad -free option for British users
- It costs £ 2.99 per Month or £ 3.99 if you subscribe to Android or iOS
- This will be the only way to fully avoid targeted ads
A big change comes to Facebook and Instagram in England, which in the coming weeks will have users the opportunity to pay a monthly subscription to avoid ads.
The subscription is priced at £ 2.99 (about $ 4 / AU $ 6) per Month on the Internet or £ 3.99 (about $ 5.50 / AU $ 8) if you subscribe via iOS or Android (due to these platforms that take a cut of the fee) and if you choose to pay you get an ad-free experience on both platforms.
It is worth noting that if you have multiple accounts, the subscription will be used for each account that you have added to the Meta Accounts Center, but you will automatically be charged a reduced price of £ 2 (about $ 2,70 / AU $ 4) per. Month on the Internet or £ 3 (about $ 4 / AU $ 6) via iOS or Android for each additional account.
To put a price on privacy
As subscriptions go not this is too expensive, but given that it is the only way to interact with these platforms without receiving targeted ads it does not feel ideal.
Essentially, this means you have to pay for Meta to respect your privacy, as while there are some ads switching on their services to customize which data ads have access to, you cannot remove the targeted nature of ads.
Therefore, this change is happening, as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is UK’s Data Watchdog, has concluded that British users should be able to opt out of targeted ads.
In a speech with The Guardian, a spokesman for ICO said “This is moving Meta away from targeting users with ads as part of the standard terms and conditions of using his Facebook and Instagram services that we have been aware of is not in line with British law.”
Personally, this subscription does not appeal to me – partly because I do not use these services much anyway, but also because I do not like the idea of having to pay to maintain my privacy. Still, it’s no doubt better than not even having the choice, as has been the case so far.
An option that is not available is a free middle ground with non-personalized ads. This is why Meta has not launched a similar offer in the EU as regulators said the simple “binary election” is violating the ACT Digital Markets (DMA).
Although it is worth noting that even with the subscription, Meta will of course still collect your data to personalize its services, it just won’t use them to serve you ads. So if you don’t trust Meta with your data at all, there’s a simpler, cheaper solution – don’t use its apps at all.
