Depending on where it is purchased, the web version costs 9.99€ per month (currently about RMB 77), and the iOS and Android versions cost 12.99€ per month (currently about $101). iOS and Android pricing takes into account the fees charged by Apple and Google through their respective purchasing policies.

Subscriptions will apply to all associated Facebook and Instagram accounts in the user’s account center, regardless of where they are purchased.

Prior to March 1, 2024, the initial subscription covers all associated accounts in the User Account Center. Beginning March 1, 2024, each additional account in the User Account Center will be subject to an additional fee of €6 (currently approximately RMB 46) per month on the web and €8 (currently approximately RMB 62) per month on iOS and Android.

It is understood that the EU regulation could limit Meta’s ability to serve personalized ads to users without their consent and harm its main source of revenue.

The option for users to purchase an ad-free subscription balances the requirements of European regulators while providing users with choice and allowing Meta to continue to serve everyone in the EU, EEA and Switzerland.

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The Norwegian agency Datatilsynet said Meta’s advertising practices on Facebook and Instagram currently involve “the processing of very private and sensitive personal data through highly opaque and intrusive monitoring and analytics operations.”

While the ban is in effect, Facebook and Instagram will only be able to deliver customized ads based on user profiles, and if Meta violates the order, it will face a fine of 1 million Norwegian kroner (NOK) per day (Note: 714,000 RMB).

In addition, the temporary ban could be lifted if Meta finds a way to legally process personal data and allows users to opt out of tracking-based targeted ads at any time.

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Meta plans to allow users to download apps directly after clicking on Facebook ads without jumping to the app store according to the new EU regulations. This means that Facebook has added an app store attribute to its social function, which will eventually compete with Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store head-on.

Android already allows sideloading of apps, and Meta may be the first to try this on the Android platform.

Meta spokesman Tom Channick: “We’re always interested in helping developers distribute their apps, and the new option will add more competition in this space. Developers deserve more ways to easily get their apps to the people who need them.”

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Meta has been a vocal opponent of the Online News Act for some time, and Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, said in a May statement, “The world is changing, and publishers, like everyone else, must adapt. Asking social media companies in 2023 to subsidize news publishers for content that isn’t as important to our users is like asking email providers to pay the postal service because people don’t send letters anymore.”

Meta also warned on June 1 that it would begin testing the removal of news from its apps in anticipation of the law’s passage. Bill C-18 will take effect six months after it is approved, according to the Associated Press.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has pushed back against Meta’s choice to remove news.” Facebook is well aware that they now have no obligations under the bill,” Rodriguez wrote on Twitter.” After the approval of Bill #C18, the government will be involved in the regulatory and implementation process.”

Google has also tested blocking news content for some Canadian users, but in a statement, the company said it is still working with the government to find a potential solution to the company’s concerns: “We’re doing everything we can to avoid an outcome that no one wants. Every step of the way, we have proposed thoughtful and pragmatic solutions that would improve the bill and clear the way for us to increase our already substantial investment in the Canadian news ecosystem. So far, none of our concerns have been addressed.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the company was in “last-minute negotiations” with the government, according to the National Post.

Meta has removed entire countries from the news in the past. The company pulled news content from Australia’s Facebook in 2021 in opposition to a law similar to Canada’s but brought it back after the Australian government changed the law.

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The government has asked Internet giants to pay local media for “citing news.

The EU has made it mandatory for operators of search engines, social media platforms and multimedia sites to pay journalists from EU member states for the appearance of news stories written and created by them.

Google agreed last year to pay more than 300 publishers in Germany, France and four other EU member states.

According to the Swiss government’s plan, the rules for paying for content on Internet platforms should apply to all Internet companies with an average annual active user base of more than 10 percent of the Swiss population. This means that search engines, social media platforms and multimedia sites with more than 900,000 active users per year will have to pay the corresponding Swiss media and publishers for crawling content and including news.

The Swiss Federal Assembly will be consulted and consulted on the bill before September 15 this year, after which it will be voted on.

The Swiss government will set up a new fee agency to negotiate and collect fees from Internet companies on behalf of Swiss media groups and journalists.

The Swiss government says it is not yet in a position to make specific revenue estimates, as the final fees will depend on the outcome of negotiations between the fee agency and the Internet companies. But a study conducted earlier this year by Schweizer Medien, an association of German-speaking Swiss publishers, showed that Google should theoretically pay Swiss publishers at least 154 million Swiss francs (currently about RMB 1.2 billion) a year.

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The CMA launched an investigation in June 2021, accusing Meta’s Facebook Marketplace service of unfair competition.

The CMA argued that Meta’s bundling of the Facebook Marketplace service with Facebook, the main social network, created a “substantial distribution advantage” over competitors.

Facebook has billions of monthly active users and millions of active ad owners around the world. CMA believes that Facebook users will be automatically connected to Marketplace whether they want to or not.

Facebook Marketplace is a place to discover and buy things, but posting something for sale is not the same as creating a paid ad to show up to people shopping on Marketplace. By creating a Marketplace ad, you can promote your business to more users on the marketplace.

Note: However, this promise will not be fulfilled immediately. Meta Company promises to take effect within December, or June 30, 2024 (whichever is later).

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Meta Platforms later issued a notice saying it would appeal the EU’s ruling on its transfer of data to the US and what the company called an “unreasonable and unnecessary fine”. Meta said there would be no immediate disruption to Facebook’s operations in Europe and that “there is a fundamental legal conflict between the US government’s data access regulations and European privacy rights, which policymakers are expected to resolve over the summer”.

The European Court of Justice has argued that such data transfers would violate the privacy rights of EU citizens, a complaint stemming from Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations of a US mass surveillance program. The ruling was made by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which said the current legal framework for data transfers “does not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Facebook’s European users” and violates the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The fine eclipses the 746 million-euro European Union record-high fine imposed in 2021 for the same privacy breach by Amazon.

The transfer of data to the US is critical to Meta’s vast ad targeting business, which relies on processing a variety of personal data on users. Last year, Meta said it would be forced to consider shutting down Facebook and Instagram in the EU if it couldn’t send data back to the US, which EU politicians saw as a threat.

Previously, these data transfers were covered by a transatlantic agreement known as the “Privacy Shield”. But that framework was invalidated in 2020 after the EU’s top court found it failed to protect data from U.S. surveillance programs.

Although Meta has now been ordered to stop these data transfers, there are some reservations in favor of the American social media giant. For starters, the ruling only applies to Facebook’s data, not to other Meta companies, such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Second, there is a five-month grace period before Meta companies must stop future transfers, and a six-month period before they must stop holding current data in the United States. Third, and most importantly, the EU and the US are currently negotiating a new data transfer agreement, which could be concluded as early as this summer and as late as October.

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Specifically, the FTC said Facebook misled parents about the extent of control over who their children connect with in the Messenger Kids app and was deceptive about the extent to which app developers have access to users’ private data, in violation of a 2019 privacy agreement Facebook reached with the FTC.

The FTC’s proposed privacy tightening measures include a ban on Facebook making money from collecting data from users under the age of 18, including in its virtual reality business. It will also face greater restrictions on the use of face recognition technology.

Meta shares were down 2% on Wednesday on the news. Meta, which also runs Instagram and contributes more than 98 percent of its revenue from digitally targeted ads, relies on users’ personal data.
Smearing TikTok

Meta responded by shifting the focus to rival TikTok, arguing that the FTC’s move was “political grandstanding” and that “we will argue our case and expect to win.” Meta said.

Although Meta has the world’s largest social network, it is competing with TikTok for the attention of younger users after the short-form video app became popular among U.S. teens a few years ago.

The FTC’s move Wednesday is its first step toward revising its 2019 privacy agreement. Facebook will have 30 days to respond. The company can also appeal any commission decision to an appeals court. The FTC has twice previously settled with Facebook over privacy violations. The first was in 2012. 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a record $5 billion fine to settle allegations that the company violated a 2012 consent decree for misleading users about the extent of control over their personal data.

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Source Meta

As of March 2023, the daily active users (DAP) of Meta’s application series reached 3.02 billion, an increase of 5% year-on-year; the monthly active users (MAP) were 3.81 billion, an increase of 5% year-on-year.

Broken down by product: Facebook’s daily active users reached 2.04 billion in March 2023, a year-on-year increase of 4%; monthly active users reached 2.99 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2%.

Ad impressions placed across Meta’s family of apps increased 26% year-over-year, while the average price per ad fell 17% over the same period. Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, totaled $7.09 billion in the first quarter of 2023.

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Meta company announced that Facebook is moving in the direction of “All in One”, users do not need to switch to other applications, you can find the corresponding content on Facebook.

Meta said it is testing the ability to access Messenger from within the Facebook app and plans to expand it to more people soon. Messenger was previously spun off from the main Facebook app.

The press release says users send more than 140 billion messages a day through its app, and on Instagram, Reels are shared in private messages more than 1 billion times a day, while on Facebook, the trend is “growing strongly as well.”

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