Could be an interesting 2 weeks.
So their solution to selling personal data was to offer a subscription so they could show you targeted ads. That feels like paying triple; the subscription, ads and personal data.
I believe it’s either
a) consent to personalized ads and “enjoy” their service for free or b) pay to not have them collect data
So you’re only paying once or twice.
I’m not sure they’ll let go of your data that easily. They’re probably just show you less ads but still collect data
The article is quite hard to read. I think it comes down to this: Meta has been arguing that its Terms of Service are enough consent for data collection. European courts disagree: consent has to be explicitly given. Meta has been ignoring this ruling for 5 years now, without much consequence. Now, the EU is starting to clamp down harder - coincidentally just a few weeks before Meta will introduce a new system. In this new system users will get a choice to either consent (explicitly), or pay to use the service without data collection consent. Data privacy advocates believe this would still be illegal. However - personal opinion, not mentioned in the article - this will likely take many more years before it goes to court, let alone before it is enforced. In other words: they keep getting away with it.