The European Consumer Organisation claims Meta is still breaching the Digital Markets Act and calls for penalties to be imposed
New analysis by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has concluded that the so-called ‘pay or consent’ ad model from Meta is still not compliant with EU laws.
Pay or consent refers to an ad model in which users can either pay for the removal of ads, or consent to cookies and be shown personalised ads.
The Facebook-owner was fined €200m by the European Commission in April 2025 for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act with its ad model. It said at the time, the model violated rules around requiring consent to use people’s data for advertising.
Meta tweaked how it asked users for consent following the ruling by including a third option, which asks to use ‘less’ user data for personalised ads across Facebook and Instagram.
The BEUC is arguing this is still in breach of the EU tech laws. It is calling on the EC and other authorities to ensure Meta complies with the law, and where appropriate, “impose periodic penalty payments”.
The new model, rolled out in January 2026 “still fails to offer consumers the possibility to give free, specific, informed and unambiguous consent to personalised ads”. This, the consumer group argued, is a “crucial problem given Meta’s extensive data collection”.
Director general of BEUC, Agustín Reyna said:“Meta continues to roll out only minor adjustments rather than solve the problem once and for all. The result is that consumers have to once again make a choice that lacks clarity and doesn’t respect basic principles of data protection law. People deserve a real, fair choice, not another round of confusing prompts.”
Meta under fire from other watchdogs
Meta has been under scrutiny for not doing enough to prevent scam ads, after reports emerged alleging up to 10% of its overall ad revenue in 2024 came from running ads for banned goods or scams.
The company has since been expelled from Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Sweden after it was found to be failing to do enough to prevent fraudulent ads.
“The board’s argument remains – Meta’s work against deceptive ads is not enough,” said Daniel Wailar, chair of IAB Sweden. “IAB Sweden will continue to push for improvements to the advertising environment and continue to work for good marketing practices.”
That being said, Meta is currently preparing to launch a legal battle against advertisers running scam ads on its platforms in Brazil, China, and Vietnam in a bid to fight against ‘celeb-bait’ scam ads and fraudulent schemes on its platforms.
