Finally, Facebook allowed users to opt out of tracking, but there’s a catch

The day has finally come, Meta is allowing users to opt out of tracking on its platforms. But before you get too excited, there are a few caveats you should be aware of.

After being fined several times by European Union (EU) regulators totaling more than $400 million, Meta is making a change to its tracking practices. At first, Meta threatened to remove the Facebook And Instagram Applications from the European market, but this trick died in the grapevine. Now the company has found a new solution; Allow users to opt out of tracking, but only in the EU.

according to The Wall Street JournalMeta will allow EU users to avoid tracking on its platforms from Wednesday. Those users will be able to “choose a version of its services that targets them only with ads based on broad categories, such as age range and general location — without using, as now, data like the videos they watch or the content they click on within Meta apps.”

While that sounds all well and good on the surface, it appears that Meta plans to make the opt-out process a headache. According to the WSJ report, EU users who wish to opt out will have to submit an “online form objecting to Meta’s use of their in-app activities for ads.” From there, the Meta will evaluate the submission and decide whether to implement the change.

Even though privacy laws in the European Union are forcing Meta to change its tracking practices, it looks like the company isn’t going to give it up without a fight.