Meta To Seek User Consent For Personalised Targeted Ads In EU

Social networking giant Meta has offered to seek user consent before allowing businesses to target advertising based on their digital activity in the European Union (EU).

Meta has added that there is "no immediate impact to its services in the region". ( Image Source :Getty )

Social networking giant Meta has offered to seek user consent before allowing businesses to target advertising based on their digital activity in the European Union (EU), after mounting pressure from regulators, the media has reported. Meta-owned popular photo-sharing platform Instagram is likely to seek permission before using "your embarrassing dance-video habit" to select the ads you see—provided you live in Europe, a report by The Wall Street Journal has said.

The Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp parent has said that the change comes in response to a number of evolving regulatory requirements in the EU and stems from an order in January by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, Meta's lead EU regulator, to reassess the legal basis on how it targets personalised ads, news agency Reuters reported.

"Today, we are announcing our intention to change the legal basis that we use to process certain data for behavioural advertising for people in the EU, EEA (European Economic Area) and Switzerland from 'Legitimate Interests' to 'Consent'," Meta said in a blog post, according to Reuters report.

The social media giant has added that there is "no immediate impact to its services in the region". Once this change is implemented, advertisers will still be able to run personalised ad campaigns to reach potential customers and grow their businesses. We have factored this change into our business outlook, the Reuters report noted.

It is to be noted that the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) is the reason why Meta-owned Instagram Threads did not launch in the region during a global rollout. The new Threads platform by Meta-owned Instagram is designed to import data from the photo-sharing app, including behavioural and advertising information. As per Europe's DMA, tech companies such as Meta cannot mix data it collects from its suite of apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Threads.