Meta May Offer Cheaper Ad-Free Experience on its Platforms to Avoid EU Scrutiny

Meta is ready to slash the price of its ads-free experience for Instagram and Facebook in the EU by almost half to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Reuters is reporting today. Meta lawyer Tim Lamb made this claim today during a DMA-related hearing with the European Commission, explaining that the company was willing to go forward with this price reduction to appease concerns from privacy and antitrust regulators.

“We have wanted to accelerate that process for some time because we need to get to a steady state…so we have offered to drop the price from 9.99 to 5.99 for a single account and 4 euros for any additional accounts,” Meta lawyer Tim Lamb said. “That is by far the lowest end of the range that any reasonable person should be paying for services of these quality, and I think that is a serious offer. The regulatory uncertainty at the moment is out there and it needs to settle down quickly,” he added.

After the EU Commission designated Facebook and Instagram as two core platform services that need to be regulated under the DMA, Meta was required to offer users in the EU, EEA and Switzerland an alternative way of using Facebook and Instagram that doesn’t track them. Meta’s ad-free subscription for users in these territories launched in November, and the company previously said in October that this new subscription “balances the requirements of European regulators while giving users choice and allowing Meta to continue serving all people in the EU, EEA and Switzerland.”

However, if the company saw this subscription model as the “best compliance solution,” there’s still some regulatory uncertainty after the DMA came into force earlier this month. Apple is pretty much in the same boat and announced more changes to ensure DMA compliance, such as the ability for iOS users in the EU to download apps directly from a website.

According to Reuters, Meta made this offer to decrease the price of its ad-free subscription in the EU earlier this year, and the company has also been discussing with data protection authorities. Companies that fail to comply with the DMA could face fines that could account for as much as 10% as their global annual revenue.