I had turned targeted ads off, on Facebook and Instagram. I still got ads but they were not targeted based on my data. I could live with that
Today I got a popup requiring me to pick an option of either accepting targeted ads or pay the equivalent of €13/$14 for an addfree experience across all meta platforms.
As far as I know they are only doing it in EU as a response to a new law the EU had enforced on them.
It’s not a new law. The GDPR has been around for years, but meta only recently lost a legal case saying that they cannot contractually force users to provide their data in exchange for access to the service.
But the GDPR also says consent has to be freely given, some interpet this as meaning that forcing people to pay in order for their data not to be used for ads is not freely given consent.