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> The company will challenge [..] the threat of a daily fine of 250,000 euros ($281,625) should it fail to comply. I think this is a good push from Belgium and

> The company will challenge [..] the threat of a daily fine of 250,000 euros ($281,625) should it fail to comply. I think this is a good push from Belgium and I hope other countries follow suit — the price of not respecting users' rights to privacy has to be too steep to ignore.

tremon 8y ago
That ruling is from February 2018 -- so we're already past the 400 days on that ruling. If it stands, Facebook is looking at a 100 million euro fine already. That's probably motivation enough to spend some money to fight it. That said, I hope two things will happen: - Facebook continues to ignore the ruling, and thus continues racking up the fine. - The ruling stands all the way to the highest court. (edit: corrected my math)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
peteretep 8y ago
$281,625 a day is $102,793,125 a year. If this gains traction across the Union, Belgium is only 2.22% of it .. scaled up, that's $4.6bn a year, and enough to hopefully change behaviour.
- windexh8er 8y ago
  Let's say, in a perfect world, Facebook does change the behaviors in question. How can anyone trust them? Facebook has proven over and over that they are not s social network for users, they are a social network for profit. The two ideals do not mix and until Zuckerberg is out at the helm it's unlikely anything will change given Facebook's track record. I was having a discussion about Zuckerberg the other day with a colleague. The crux of the conversation came down to something interesting which is that Mark, from what we could both glean from public insight on him, has never been all that normal or ordinary in his real life social prowess. Yet he is the kingpin of social networks today. The conversation ended on a simple observation: Mark burned people to get Facebook off the ground. And Mark will continue to burn anyone, including his users, to continue to move it forward.
  - logifail 8y ago
    > Mark burned people to get Facebook off the ground. And Mark will continue to burn anyone, including his users, to continue to move it forward Q: Is this atypical behaviour for someone in his position?
    - fmihaila 8y ago
      > Q: Is this atypical behaviour for someone in his position? Does it matter? It must not be rewarded, regardless of how common it is. Allowing share structures that divorce ownership from decision power may not be such a good idea after all. More generally, we should probably also reconsider fiduciary duty as the sole motive force of corporations.
      - anticensor 8y ago
        This is irrelevant for Mark as he passed the stage of just satisfying the fiduciaries way back. He now implements his ideal of no-privacy social system (using his enterprise). It is hard to stop anyone implementing oneself after it started.
        fmihaila 8y ago
        Yes, I agree that it's hard. It's hard to displace dictators in general. It still must be done. And we should learn from this as a society and tweak the rules to make it harder for anyone to become a dictator in the future.
        anticensor 8y ago
        We could apply distributed systems decision theory into general sociology, it might work.
        fmihaila 8y ago
        Wow, I didn't expect this reply. I had the exact same thought after I read this HN thread [1] from 3 weeks ago about coordination-free distributed consistency [2]. Is this what you had in mind? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316737 [2] https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/03/06/keeping-calm-when-distributed-consistency-is-easy/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/03/06/keeping-calm-when-distri...
falcolas 8y ago
May Facebook have as much luck challenging this as EA had challenging Belgum's ban on in-game gambling.

tremon 8y ago

That ruling is from February 2018 -- so we're already past the 400 days on that ruling. If it stands, Facebook is looking at a 100 million euro fine already. That's probably motivation enough to spend some money to fight it. That said, I hope two things will happen: - Facebook continues to ignore the ruling, and thus continues racking up the fine. - The ruling stands all the way to the highest court. (edit: corrected my math)

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

peteretep 8y ago

$281,625 a day is $102,793,125 a year. If this gains traction across the Union, Belgium is only 2.22% of it .. scaled up, that's $4.6bn a year, and enough to hopefully change behaviour.

windexh8er 8y ago
Let's say, in a perfect world, Facebook does change the behaviors in question. How can anyone trust them? Facebook has proven over and over that they are not s social network for users, they are a social network for profit. The two ideals do not mix and until Zuckerberg is out at the helm it's unlikely anything will change given Facebook's track record. I was having a discussion about Zuckerberg the other day with a colleague. The crux of the conversation came down to something interesting which is that Mark, from what we could both glean from public insight on him, has never been all that normal or ordinary in his real life social prowess. Yet he is the kingpin of social networks today. The conversation ended on a simple observation: Mark burned people to get Facebook off the ground. And Mark will continue to burn anyone, including his users, to continue to move it forward.
- logifail 8y ago
  > Mark burned people to get Facebook off the ground. And Mark will continue to burn anyone, including his users, to continue to move it forward Q: Is this atypical behaviour for someone in his position?
  - fmihaila 8y ago
    > Q: Is this atypical behaviour for someone in his position? Does it matter? It must not be rewarded, regardless of how common it is. Allowing share structures that divorce ownership from decision power may not be such a good idea after all. More generally, we should probably also reconsider fiduciary duty as the sole motive force of corporations.
    - anticensor 8y ago
      This is irrelevant for Mark as he passed the stage of just satisfying the fiduciaries way back. He now implements his ideal of no-privacy social system (using his enterprise). It is hard to stop anyone implementing oneself after it started.
      - fmihaila 8y ago
        Yes, I agree that it's hard. It's hard to displace dictators in general. It still must be done. And we should learn from this as a society and tweak the rules to make it harder for anyone to become a dictator in the future.
        anticensor 8y ago
        We could apply distributed systems decision theory into general sociology, it might work.
        fmihaila 8y ago
        Wow, I didn't expect this reply. I had the exact same thought after I read this HN thread [1] from 3 weeks ago about coordination-free distributed consistency [2]. Is this what you had in mind? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316737 [2] https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/03/06/keeping-calm-when-distributed-consistency-is-easy/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/03/06/keeping-calm-when-distri...

falcolas 8y ago

May Facebook have as much luck challenging this as EA had challenging Belgum's ban on in-game gambling.