Statement on “Pay or Okay” Penality against Meta

Statement on “Pay or Okay” Penality against Meta

• Information about the EU COM decision

• Information about “less personalized Ads”

Vienna, April 23rd, 2025

First Statements by Max #Schrems, Chair of Noyb, on the fine: “Roughly 3 percent of people want personalised ads, but ‘pay or okay’ produces a consent rate of 99 percent. We call it a ‘North Korean consent rate’. It’s obvious that it is not ‘freely given’ as required by EU law.”

But the case is not over. The Commission mentioned in its press release that it has only reviewed the time period between March 2024 and November 2024. After that, Meta has moved to a system with a “pay”, a “consent” and a “less ads” option.

The “less ads” option was supposed to make the system legal, but it has massive usability issues. Specifically, users are forced into “ad breaks” that prevent them from scrolling through their feed until a timer runs out. Also, #Meta nudges users into choosing the fully personalised option. Last but not least, the company still uses some personal data for advertisment. According to Meta, this includes things like "how you engage with ads, such as clicking or liking them", “your age, the gender you provide and your location”, but also “your device information, like the device or browser you’re using” and “information about the content you're viewing while you browse on our Products”.

Max Schrems: “Meta’s ‘less ads’ option is just a smokescreen. It has massive usability limitations—nothing any user seriously wants. Meta has simply created a ‘fake choice’, pretending that it would overcome the illegal ‘pay or okay’ approach.”

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