> Alternatively, they’re selling their product with an ad-supported tier. This action is explicitly about responding to EU GDPR regulations by trying to claim

> Alternatively, they’re selling their product with an ad-supported tier. This action is explicitly about responding to EU GDPR regulations by trying to claim that people who decline a subscription are freely giving consent to the processing which the subscription would stop. From the official rulings which have so far been made about other companies by a few DPAs, it’s highly doubtful that the prohibitively high price for this tier will qualify as a viable enough alternative to the no-fee option to treat people’s consent to the processing as freely given. > This is annoying. This is Meta engaging in outright dishonest subterfuge, because the law with which they’re trying to fake compliance through this subscription option is not limited to advertising in any way. > Also, the overlap of people who would pay for privacy and are on Facebook is small. Not in my estimation. Too many professional and social circumstances in too many countries require using Facebook, Instagram, and/or especially WhatsApp for most people to avoid them completely. For those of us (including me) who have never so far signed up with them, there’s another problem: they don’t provide a way for me to exercise my GDPR rights without being a subscriber, even though I strongly expect that they control and process much data about me uploaded by friends and family who are their users, and by Facebook tracking on other sites. (For those HN readers who realize that I’m American: I currently reside in and am located in Germany, so yes I have GDPR rights.)