Not content with $12.0 billion in quarterly revenue, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is considering an ad-free subscription option, a new potential revenue source for the social media giant. According to Bloomberg, Facebook is doing market research to determine if an ad-free option would help Facebook attract more new users. This is not the first time Facebook has considered a subscription, but the company would not comment on recent discussions revealed by undisclosed sources.

Bloomberg suggests the move is related to a loss of trust from Facebook users, following the Cambridge Analytica data leak in which the developer released personal information on 87 million users. When the scandal was made public, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was required to testify before Congress. He addressed that in last week’s earnings call.

‘…as you all know, we have important issues to address. For most of our existence, we’ve focused on all the good that connecting people can bring. But it’s clear now we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well – whether it’s foreign interference in elections, fake news, hate speech, or app developers and data privacy,’ Zuckerberg said.

Among the improvements Facebook is making is restricting the data that developers are allowed to access. Facebook is also building advanced artificial intelligence tools to identify and remove fake accounts, and they are doubling the security and content review teams to more than 20,000 employees. In terms of ads, Facebook is trying to make political ads more transparent.

‘We have a responsibility to keep our community safe and secure, and we’re going to invest heavily to do that,’ Zuckerberg added.

Though chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg did not specifically address an ad-free subscription option in the earnings call, she addressed the concept of diversifying revenue streams in response to a reporter’s question.

‘We certainly thought about lots of other forms of monetization including subscriptions, and we’ll always continue to consider everything,’ Sandberg said. ‘Ads for us are a very natural fit for our business, and we have a lot of runway ahead of us.’

She also spoke about the advertising experience which shows where Facebook’s thinking is on the issue.

‘We also believe that people should control their advertising experience. For every ad we show, there’s an option to find out why you’re seeing that ad – and to turn off ads from that advertiser entirely. And you can opt out of being targeted based on certain information, like the websites you visit or your relationship status,’ said Sandberg.

For the first quarter of 2018, Facebook had $12.0 billion in total revenue, a 50 percent increase over the first quarter of 2017. Advertising accounted for $11.8 billion in revenue, while payments and other fees made of the rest. The company reported net income of $5.0 billion, or $1.69 per share, a 63 percent increase year-over-year.

Despite the company’s challenges, Facebook saw increases in activity on the social media site during the month of March. Daily active users were 1.45 billion on average, and monthly active users were 2.20 billion on average, both representing a 13 percent increase year-over-year. Due to GDPR, which goes into effect later this month, Facebook is expecting daily and monthly active users to be flat or slightly decreased for the second quarter of the year.

Insider Take:

Though Facebook has considered subscription options before, it has not implemented them. The presumption is that the time wasn’t right before, but things have changed for Facebook the last few months. There are three primary reasons for considering the option. 1 – Other subscription services (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, etc.) have been successful offering ad-free options for their subscribers, so there is precedent to consider.

2 – An ad-free subscription might alleviate the fears of some Facebook’s users that advertisers could get ahold of their data. Facebook will likely be gathering data in other forms, but without advertising on a paid account, advertisers won’t be the forms of data leaks or misuse. 3 – Diversification would help Facebook diversify its revenue streams, so it isn’t as reliant on advertising revenue.