The Real Cost of Privacy in the “Consent or Pay” Model
This blog post may not be easy to read. It matters, though, to certain Meta users who are subject to pregnancy ads when they have lost pregnancies or babies, and to all of us that are subject to online advertising despite not wanting to be. Below is a different analysis of why the “consent or pay” is not valid GDPR consent.
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The BBC wrote about women trying to stop Meta’s ads appearing on their platforms (Instagram and/or Facebook) after pregnancy loss.*
How Much for Privacy?
At the time and since then, Meta users have had the option to stop all ads by paying £3-£4 per month. I have done this myself even though the option to do so wasn’t easy to find in account settings, but I can confirm digital life is much calmer now.
However, I generally disagree that paying not to see ads is valid consent. It goes against the very nature of not being forced to do something, “or else”.
Maybe I don’t want to pay out of principle, and yet, there is no other equivalent option not to see ads. I could come off social media or ignore the ads, but nothing would achieve the same goal without leaving me a bit out of pocket. Consent is neither genuine nor freely given.
I have experienced pregnancy loss. That’s not why I started paying to stop the ads, but let me be honest: on a bad day when grief feels like a tsunami, would I pay £3? Yes, I would.
Would I pay £100? Yes, I might even pay £300 for the promise I will never see anything about pregnancy (or indeed miscarriage) unless and until I want to see it.
Is that a sensible behavioural advertising model? It could be lucrative but it shows little to no care and thought for your users. I’d be throwing money at a personal pain that I can’t resolve, just to hide from it for a while.
What Would a Fair Model Actually Look Like?
I'm not against platforms making money. I'm against being given a choice that isn't really a choice to be left alone. Below is my Wishlist for what a genuine choice would look like.
At a minimum, it would mean a free option that doesn't rely on tracking me. Contextual ads based on what I'm looking at, not who the platform thinks I am.
It would mean real, granular controls over ad topics, so that "don't show me anything pregnancy-related" is a setting I can actually find and trust to work.
It would mean that sensitive categories, such as pregnancy, baby loss, bereavement, health, body image, addiction, are treated as sensitive by default, not opted out of, one painful impression at a time.
This is technically possible. Platforms know what categories their ads fall into because they sell access to those categories. "We can't filter it" doesn't hold up when the entire business model depends on being able to.
More Than Just One Ad
The women in the BBC story aren't an unfortunate edge case. They are what happens when an advertising system is built on inferring everything it can about you and selling access to those inferences. The same signals that make a pregnancy ad lucrative when the pregnancy is wanted, make it devastating when it isn't. The system can't tell the difference. This is not news to the platforms.
I agree with the EDPB on this:** the right to data protection shouldn't become a feature you have to pay to enjoy. That's the EU position, at least.
Meta's £3-£4 isn't the price of privacy. It's the price of being left alone by one company, on one set of apps, for one month at a time — assuming you can find the setting in the first place. I’d pay more than that if I thought my mental health would benefit (it would be a futile attempt made in desperation). That's not a defence of the model.
I hope a personal story can serve as objective evidence that the model is broken regardless of the fact that the UK regulator says it could work.*** Maybe it could. But don’t think it’s consent.
* BBC, The women taking Meta to task after their baby loss, available at <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8450380zyo> accessed 22.05.2026
** EDPB: ‘Consent or Pay’ models should offer real choice; <https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/news/2024/edpb-consent-or-pay-models-should-offer-real-choice_en> accessed 22.05.2026
*** The overall ICO guidance on “consent or pay” is more positive that the EDPB and signals that this model could be compliant if you do certain things right <https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/online-tracking/consent-or-pay/about-this-guidance/> accessed 22.05.2026