Meta breaches digital rules by charging users for ad-free social networks, EU claims

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has breached the EU’s new digital laws with an advertising model that charges users for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram, according to the European Commission.Meta launched a “pay or consent” model last year in an effort to comply with the bloc’s data privacy rules, under which users pay a monthly fee for an ad-free version of Facebook or Instagram that does not use their personal data for advertising purposes. Users who do not pay consent, as part of the signing up process ...