Meta’s European Party Is Hanging by a Thread
Zuckerberg may be forced to give Europeans more choice on how their data is used. That could hit earnings.
The Threads app, operated by Meta Platforms Inc., on a smartphone, besides a Meta logo, arranged in Madrid, Spain, on July 5, 2023.
Photographer: Paul Hanna/BloombergThere are two ways of looking at Meta Platforms Inc.’s release of a Twitter competitor called Threads on Thursday. It’s beautifully timed to capitalize on growing unease over the way Elon Musk has run Twitter. And it’s also horribly timed, coinciding with the imminent launch of a new European Union law that strikes at the heart of the way Meta makes money. That undermines its plans to turn Threads into another outlet for data harvesting. For now Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is taking what he can get. He has rolled out Threads in dozens of countries, racking up more than 10 million users in the first seven hours -- just not in the EU.
As of Thursday, the new app — which combines a cornucopia of personal information for advertisers about people’s health, shopping habits, location and other unspecified “sensitive” data — wasn’t available in France, Germany, Italy or Belgium. Down the line, Zuckerberg may be forced to give the residents of those countries a choice on whether they want their data processed for the purposes of advertising. If they say no, that could hurt Meta financially.