Meta Platforms Inc., parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has announced plans to give European Union users the option to limit the personal data they share for advertising across its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
The company disclosed this commitment following ongoing discussions with the European Commission, which found Meta in breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in April 2025.
The announcement comes amid growing regulatory scrutiny of large tech platforms and rising concerns over user privacy in digital advertising.
What they are saying
According to the European Commission, Meta will offer EU users the choice between sharing all their data for fully personalised ads or sharing less data for a more limited ad experience.
“Meta will give users the effective choice between consenting to share all their data and seeing fully personalised advertising, and opting to share less personal data for an experience with more limited personalised advertising,” the Commission said in a statement.
This marks the first time the social network will provide such an option. The new choices are set to be available starting January 2026.
The tech giant was hit with a €200 million ($233 million) fine in April for breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to curb the dominance of major tech firms. The violation covered Facebook and Instagram from November 2023 to November 2024, during which Meta’s pay-or-consent model did not meet EU standards.
Following the fine, Meta revised its model to use less personal data for targeted advertising, a change aimed at complying with DMA requirements.
What this means
It means that starting in January 2026, people in the European Union who use Facebook or Instagram will be able to decide how much of their personal data Meta can use to show them ads.
Currently, Meta often shows ads that are “personalised,” based on what the platform knows about you, your activity, interests, and other data.
With this change, EU users can either allow Meta to use all their data and continue seeing fully personalised ads, or they can limit the data they share and see fewer or less targeted ads.
What you should know
In 2023, Meta was fined a record €1.2 billion by the EU for transferring European Facebook users’ data to the U.S. without proper protections, the largest penalty under the GDPR. The European Data Protection Board called the violation very serious due to its scale and ordered Meta to stop exporting EU data and comply within six months.
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) last year imposed a $220 million fine on Meta after a 38‑month investigation found the company guilty of unauthorised data sharing, privacy violations and abuse of market dominance.
Early this year, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) levied an additional $32.8 million fine along with eight corrective orders against Meta for further data privacy infractions relating to behavioural advertising and non‑consensual data processing. They later reached an out‑of‑court settlement over the $32.8 million fine.
