If you live in the UK and have a Facebook or Instagram account, you have probably received a message when you’ve logged in asking you if you “Want to subscribe or continue to use our Products for free with ads?”

You can’t bypass this message and a forced into a binary choice about whether to pay £2.99 per month so you can use Meta’s platforms without your personal information being used to sell advertising, or to continue without paying and allow your personal information to be used for adverts. If you pay for a subscription your personal data won’t be used to show you adverts. It is worth noting it will still be used for things such as account recommendations or to improve Meta’s own products and services.

If you are unable to afford £2.99 a month and are forced to pick the option to continue to receive adverts. This is not using Meta’s products ‘for free’ as the social media giant claims. You will instead pay with your data, which they will process and use to sell adverts.

In 2024, 98% of Meta’s $165bn of revenue came from advertising. This breaks down to $49.63 (approx £36) revenue per user, which is what they are charging users to stop their information being used for stalker ads. However, the Consent or Pay policy is not just about advertising, it is about online surveillance and profiling, neither of which are necessary for selling advertising.

Why are you seeing this?

For years, Meta have been processing your personal data and making it available to advertisers who can use it to target adverts at you. This business model has been used in harmful ways. Bad actors have used Meta’s targeted ads to manipulate elections, spread disinformation, fuel division, and facilitate fraud.

As well as being harmful, Meta’s stalker ads breached data protection law, which gives us the right to opt out of profiling for targeted advertising.

In March 2025, Meta settled a four year court case with human rights campaigner Tanya O’Carroll, who had taken legal action to force the social media giant to stop collecting and processing her personal data for advertising purposes.

The case clarified our right to opt out of profiling for targeted advertising and thousands of Meta users in the UK took action. Meta’s response was unclear and unsatisfactory. While the ICO seemed to be taking a strong stance on this issue, it appears a combination of both their new duty to consider the ‘growth agenda’ (which Labour introduced as part of the Data use and Access Act), and political pressure from DSIT and Number 10 (stemming from Government desire not to upset UK/US relations by regulating ‘big tech), resulted in a “volte-face” from our regulator. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has rubber stamped the consent or pay model, despite there being no choice to receive adverts that don’t use our personal data.

UK data protection law stipulates that consent must be freely given, but Meta forces you to consent to online surveillance by threatening to charge you to use their service if you don’t. As the O’Carroll case has established, UK law also gives you the right to opt-out of commercial tracking and profiling, no strings attached. Meta, however, doesn’t allow you to exercise a right you’re entitled to unless you pay them— something only those in an economically privileged position can afford.

Meta’s policy and the ICO’s sign off are ignoring the obvious: Meta, and any other social media company, has no right to violate your privacy and make profit from it, just as much as a drug dealer has no right to make profits by selling illegal drugs. In turn, the ICO is acting like a sleazy cop that sides with a drug cartel.

What’s the alternative?

We want a world where our regulators and government aren’t beholden to US Big Tech. The ICO could stand up to Meta and force them to give us another choice, where we can access their services without being tracked.

Meta can still make billions from advertising without processing our personal data, such as by contextual advertising. This means that Meta can serve you ads based on Facebook pages your are viewing, rather than because they know your age, gender, sexuality and where you live.

What else can I practically do?

• Use Facebook via a web-browser such as Firefox that runs an ad blocker such as https://ublockorigin.com/ rather than downloading their surveillance app onto your phone

• Review your advertising settings, which third parties have targeted you with a custom audience, and categories of adverts associated with your account centre. https://accountscenter.facebook.com/ads

• Go to your information and contacts on your Facebook account settings, go to cookies and turn off the optional cookies that track you on third party sites.

• Consider using alternative social media platforms such as Mastodon or Pixelfed.

• Be careful about what personal information, photos and videos you share on Meta’s platforms.

• Support our campaign for an open internet with interoperability so that we aren’t tried into platforms due to network effects.

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