4 ms·

Color me cynical, but I don't see how the dollar amount of the fine matters if it can't be effectively collected anyway. Recently it was revealed that the FCC h

by dzdt 7y ago

Color me cynical, but I don't see how the dollar amount of the fine matters if it can't be effectively collected anyway. Recently it was revealed that the FCC had collected a few thousand dollars of $208 million levied in fines. [1] How is a bigger fine different? [1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-fcc-has-fined-robocallers-208-million-its-collected-6-790-11553770803&ved=2ahUKEwippoPhysLmAhVEMt8KHcvQAboQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0q4byU7X6mFI5N9jFXY6p7&ampcf=1 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

hanniabu 7y ago
Who receives this fine? What are the funds put towards?
- nathancahill 7y ago
  No one apparently. $6,790 collected means you're losing money to collect it.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  As I understand it, if a law does not otherwise specify where the proceeds of fines go, then they go into the US' general fund.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Amortised across all calls, the fines amount to a half-penny per call, if assessed and collected. Which I pointed out a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21494828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21494828 48 billion calls, $208 in assessed fines, $6,790 collected.
- hinkley 7y ago
  I wonder what success rate it would take in order to be worth someone's time and effort to set up an agency to collect these fines, and then how big the fines would have to be to make it worth the cost of doing so. Like if the fines hit $400 million, a group that could only deliver a 10% increase in collections might still be worth doing.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    The total scope of fines is one element. The fines attributable to a single entity another. The collectability on those fines, the third. By scoping responsibility to include the call recipient's telco, you'd address all three of these. That telco could, of course, adjust its risk-management practices (who it interops with, what the conditions of those interops are, caller identity / reputation) to minimise such risks. Which would of course be the whole fucking point.
    - hinkley 7y ago
      True. Collecting the fines from the telco and then makin g them go extract those fees from their customers would be a powerful incentive to do something. We have an idea what that should look like, but capitalism is weird and who knows what they’d actually do.
viraptor 7y ago
The enforcement in this case is put on the carriers, so in case of non-compliance that's who's blamed. See the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151...
- generalpass 7y ago
  > The enforcement in this case is put on the carriers, so in case of non-compliance that's who's blamed. See the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151.. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151.... Okay, so that's a kind of a long bill, so I can't verify but you make it sound a bit like the carriers will be fined. They historically directly pass-through all compliance costs to customers, so ultimately customers pay to receive the robocalls?
  - dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
    But fortunately, the carriers have the resources to track and determine who is making robocalls. Just take call duration - if you have a thousand calls with similar duration, that's enough to spot robocalls most of the time. It can get more complicated, of course, but nothing that general machine learning can't track with a little bit of positive reinforcement.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    The most interesting parts of the bill are pretty much "FCC will decide how it works", but some bits are better defined. For example the call authentication framework can add no line item to the consumer bill. Sure... they could raise the price across the board, but that's a cynical realist view :-)
    - generalpass 7y ago
      > The most interesting parts of the bill are pretty much "FCC will decide how it works", but some bits are better defined. For example the call authentication framework can add no line item to the consumer bill. Sure... they could raise the price across the board, but that's a cynical realist view :-) To be fully cynical would be to predict that in five years Congress will be calling the wireless providers to testify as to why prices are increasing at such a high rate.

by dzdt 7y ago

hanniabu 7y ago

Who receives this fine? What are the funds put towards?

nathancahill 7y ago
No one apparently. $6,790 collected means you're losing money to collect it.
JohnFen 7y ago
As I understand it, if a law does not otherwise specify where the proceeds of fines go, then they go into the US' general fund.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Amortised across all calls, the fines amount to a half-penny per call, if assessed and collected. Which I pointed out a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21494828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21494828 48 billion calls, $208 in assessed fines, $6,790 collected.

hinkley 7y ago
I wonder what success rate it would take in order to be worth someone's time and effort to set up an agency to collect these fines, and then how big the fines would have to be to make it worth the cost of doing so. Like if the fines hit $400 million, a group that could only deliver a 10% increase in collections might still be worth doing.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The total scope of fines is one element. The fines attributable to a single entity another. The collectability on those fines, the third. By scoping responsibility to include the call recipient's telco, you'd address all three of these. That telco could, of course, adjust its risk-management practices (who it interops with, what the conditions of those interops are, caller identity / reputation) to minimise such risks. Which would of course be the whole fucking point.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    True. Collecting the fines from the telco and then makin g them go extract those fees from their customers would be a powerful incentive to do something. We have an idea what that should look like, but capitalism is weird and who knows what they’d actually do.

viraptor 7y ago

The enforcement in this case is put on the carriers, so in case of non-compliance that's who's blamed. See the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151...

generalpass 7y ago
> The enforcement in this case is put on the carriers, so in case of non-compliance that's who's blamed. See the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151.. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/151.... Okay, so that's a kind of a long bill, so I can't verify but you make it sound a bit like the carriers will be fined. They historically directly pass-through all compliance costs to customers, so ultimately customers pay to receive the robocalls?
- dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
  But fortunately, the carriers have the resources to track and determine who is making robocalls. Just take call duration - if you have a thousand calls with similar duration, that's enough to spot robocalls most of the time. It can get more complicated, of course, but nothing that general machine learning can't track with a little bit of positive reinforcement.
- viraptor 7y ago
  The most interesting parts of the bill are pretty much "FCC will decide how it works", but some bits are better defined. For example the call authentication framework can add no line item to the consumer bill. Sure... they could raise the price across the board, but that's a cynical realist view :-)
  - generalpass 7y ago
    > The most interesting parts of the bill are pretty much "FCC will decide how it works", but some bits are better defined. For example the call authentication framework can add no line item to the consumer bill. Sure... they could raise the price across the board, but that's a cynical realist view :-) To be fully cynical would be to predict that in five years Congress will be calling the wireless providers to testify as to why prices are increasing at such a high rate.