The Austrian Supreme Court issued a binding decision on December 16, 2025, declaring Meta Platforms’ personalized advertising model unlawful under EU data‑protection law. The ruling was announced to the public on December 18, 2025, and it requires Meta to grant EU users full access to their personal data within 14 days of any request, establishing a new legal precedent across the European Union.
The court found that Meta’s model processed sensitive personal data—such as political views, sexual orientation, and health information—without obtaining the specific, informed, unambiguous, and freely given consent required by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The decision mandates that Meta redesign its ad‑targeting framework to separate sensitive data from other user data and to provide users with a comprehensive data‑access portal, thereby limiting the precision of its AI‑driven ad tools and increasing compliance costs.
Meta’s advertising business accounts for the majority of its $189.5 billion trailing‑12‑month revenue in 2025, a 21.3% year‑over‑year increase from the $164.5 billion reported in 2024. The ruling threatens to erode the data advantage that underpins Meta’s high‑margin ad revenue, potentially forcing the company to reduce the granularity of its targeting algorithms and to invest heavily in new privacy‑compliant infrastructure. A Meta spokesperson acknowledged the decision and said the company is reviewing the ruling, indicating that management is preparing for significant operational adjustments.
Investors reacted to the announcement with a modest decline in Meta’s share price, reflecting concerns about the regulatory risk and the potential impact on future ad‑revenue growth. The market’s focus on the ruling underscores the broader expectation that other EU jurisdictions may pursue similar actions, amplifying the compliance burden for Meta’s European operations.
The case is the culmination of a decade‑long legal battle that began in 2014, during which Meta faced multiple Austrian Supreme Court decisions and EU Court of Justice rulings. The ruling also highlights the EU’s commitment to enforcing GDPR, particularly in light of Meta’s prior €1.2 billion fine in May 2023 for unlawful data transfers to the United States and a €390 million fine in January 2023 for privacy violations in targeted advertising. The decision reinforces the scrutiny of Meta’s “pay or consent” model, which the EU has found to be in breach of digital competition rules, and it imposes stricter safeguards on the processing of sensitive data.
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