Meta accused of breaching EU antitrust rules over ad-supported subscription service

Facebook parent company Meta was on Monday accused by EU regulators of failing to comply with the bloc's landmark antitrust rules over its recently introduced ad-supported social networking service.

The Commission labelled the ad-supported subscription option a "pay or consent" model — which means users have to either pay to use Meta's platforms ad-free, or consent to their data being processed for personalized advertising. The service was introduced for Facebook and Instagram in Europe last year.

"In the Commission's preliminary view, this binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalised but equivalent version of Meta's social networks," regulators said in a statement Monday.

A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that its ad-supported subscription model "follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA."

"We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close," the spokesperson added.

Meta introduced the new model in response to a ruling from the European Court of Justice, the EU's top court, last year that a company may offer an "alternative" version of its service that does not rely on data collection for ads.

Meta has previously pointed to this ruling as a reason for introducing the subscription offer.

In its statement Monday, the Commission said that Meta's ad-supported offering failed to comply with the DMA for two key reasons: one is that it doesn't let users opt for a service that uses less personal data but is still equivalent to the "personalized ads"-based service.

Regulators said users should still be entitled to "get access to an equivalent