Facebook and Instagram users in the UK are to be offered advert-free versions of the social networks for up to £3.99 a month.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has responded to regulatory warnings over personalised adverts, in which users’ data is crunched to produce targeted ads, by launching an ad-free subscription service.

Web users will be charged £2.99 a month and mobile phone users £3.99 a month to scroll through Facebook and Instagram without targeted ads. If the accounts are linked, users only need to pay one monthly fee.

“This will give people based in the UK the choice between continuing to use Facebook and Instagram for free with personalised ads, or subscribing to stop seeing ads,” said Meta.

Meta said the service will be rolled out over the coming weeks. Users who do not take up the subscription will still see ads based on their personal data.

The subscription offering is similar to a service offered by Meta in the EU, which has been deemed in breach of the digital markets act – a piece of legislation designed to rein in big tech – by the bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission.

The commission fined Meta €200m this year, stating the company should have launched a free version of its sites that used less detailed personal data – such as gender, age and location – for making targeted ads.

The UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, said it welcomed the move.

“This moves Meta away from targeting users with ads as part of the standard terms and conditions for using its Facebook and Instagram services, which we’ve been clear is not in line with UK law,” said an ICO spokesperson.