11/03/2023

The Price for Privacy is $10 a Month

At least, that's what Meta is telling users

How much is privacy worth? Is a yearly subscription for a VPN justified? Is it better to pay with your time, changing the privacy settings on every website you visit? What is a fair price to stop data about who you are and how you behave being used to inform ads? Different companies have different answers. Yahoo offers ad-free email for $5 per month; for ad-free music, Spotify charges double that. To be free from ads on YouTube, it's $13.99, even more.

This month, for the first time, Meta will also put a monthly price on privacy. Right now, for people in Europe,  that price is €9.99 ($10.50), or €12.99 if they sign up on their phones.

This is a major change for Meta, a company that has long lauded the benefits of an ad-supported internet, arguing that it means everyone gets the same service, however much money they might have. But privacy regulators in Europe are circling. A series of fines and legal cases are backing the company into a corner, with regulators arguing it needs to change the way it gets users to consent to behavioral advertising. Meta's latest response? If people dont like these ads, they can pay to opt out.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.