When Facebook introduced a plan for European users to pay for an ad-free experience, advocates immediately blasted the company for forcing users to pay for their privacy. Many lawmakers also weren’t convinced this would even help Facebook comply with data laws. So this week, Facebook caved to regulators and offered to cut its subscription price in half. However, experts say that the amount of money the company wants users to pay isn’t the problem — the very idea of charging them for privacy is.

“We know from all research that even a fee of just 1.99 euros or less leads to a shift in consent from 3-10% that genuinely want advertisements to 99.9% that still click yes,” Austrian privacy activist and longtime Facebook foe Max Schrems said. “In reality it is not about the amount of money — it is about the ‘pay or okay’ approach as a whole. The entire purpose of ‘pay or okay’ is to get users to click on okay, even if this is not their free and genuine choice. We do not think the mere change of the amount makes this approach legal.”

Shrems also went on to say that European laws require that consent must be “freely” given by users. So in other words, even though Facebook thinks it’s found a solution here, the fight over this so-called “pay for privacy” scheme is certain to be ongoing.

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