8 ms·

Australia sues Facebook over Cambridge Analytica

177 points by ajaviaad 7y ago

freenergi 7y ago
Freenergi is a renewable energy startup company based in Indonesia. We provide solar power installation, solar as service and manufacture solar power products to reduce residential customers electricity bill and providing clean energy solutions for indoor and outdoor. We are looking for potentional investor and cofounder for this early stage startup. Please do not hesitate to contact us at freenergi contact page. www.freenergi.com
doublerabbit 7y ago
Good.
- rvz 7y ago
  Very good indeed. Its a fine fit for a multi-billion dollar company. Unless they get it significantly reduced somehow...
  - doublerabbit 7y ago
    Any fine against Facebook is good.
aerovistae 7y ago
yeah that's real likely
ztratar 7y ago
No $529BN fine would ever actually happen. That would be considered economic warfare and the US wouldn't allow it.
- candu 7y ago
  OTOH, I'd love to see the mental / rhetorical gymnastics demanded of our politicians to defend tech companies from large fines associated with privacy violations while simultaneously excoriating those same companies over privacy violations.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > while simultaneously excoriating those same companies over privacy violations Has there been excoriation over this? I've seen lots of hand-wringing over election interference and addiction. But the privacy complaints have yet to find footing in America.
    - simonh 7y ago
      The US Senate had a hearing over it and the FTC fined Facebook $5bn over the same scandal. Arguably that’s a start.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- WilTimSon 7y ago
  What kind of fine do you think would be realistic? I'd be very interested to see Facebook bullied out of a couple billions, although I do think it would be protected somehow, too many people have their interests tied up in it. Still, a precedent being set on this sort of scale would be a good thing, right?
- roblabla 7y ago
  I mean, what would happen is simply that Facebook would shutdown operations in Australia (Making Facebook Australia declare bankruptcy), pay whatever couple millions is in Facebook Australia's coffers, and the rest of the fine would simply go unpaid. It's not like Australia can fine a foreign company - they can only fine the local branch of the company. There's exactly no way for facebook to pay a fine that's equal to 7 times its annual revenue...
- raz32dust 7y ago
  Why not? Isn't Australia free to not allow Facebook to operate in their country if they don't pay a fine? And if the US prevents them from doing so by retaliation or sanctions, that would actually be closer to warfare.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    The US almost certainly would, at least it did most recently when France wanted to put a digital tax: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078574/france-us-digital-tax-deal-negotiations-tariffs-postponed-trump https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078574/france-us-digita... A consumption tax is a pretty good way to tax foreign companies though imo, as long as your domestic market is desirable.
    - lapnitnelav 7y ago
      If enough countries start doing that, maybe the balance of power might be different. Especially in the West.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      >The US almost certainly would What happened with China? I know FB isn't really operating in China. (At least no one I knew in Ningbo had it?) So did we sanction China for that or how did that all work? Because, and I don't know if we did or didn't, but if we didn't sanction China, why sanction Australia? Was that situation different somehow? (Other than just "China's richer").
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > And if the US prevents them from doing so by retaliation or sanctions, that would actually be closer to warfare. So? It's about power, the US has it, Australia doesn't. Australia can fine them a hefty sum, but nothing that looks like an existential threat to the company.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Wouldn't whatever legal entity Facebook has set up in Australia just declare bankruptcy? They can't exactly levy fines at a company that's not in their jurisdiction.
- ipnon 7y ago
  Isn't "economic warfare" a bit of an oxymoron? If it's warfare it involves violence, if it's economic then it involves free trade in the aggregate.
  - dx87 7y ago
    Not necessarily. Not everyone uses the same definition of war. The definition I was told in the military is that it's a political tool used when all other methods have failed. So if placing economic sanctions is a last resort, then economic warfare would make sense.
adtac 7y ago
And when the actual fine is just $10bn, the markets will reward FB by increasing their stock price.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  Those aren't rewards. The price goes down at the opposite of the suit and the fine gets priced in with a given risk factor, and if they end up doing better than expected, then the price will adjust to integrate that new knowledge. It's still lower than if they'd never gotten fined (though perhaps not lower than if they hadn't unethically made that money in the first place)
akmarinov 7y ago
Spoiler: they’ll get away with a couple of mil
poooogles 7y ago
The fact that we (the UK) only fined Facebook £500k [1] is an utter scandal. You can probably say $529bn is too much, but the appropriate amount might be somewhere in the middle of the two... 1. https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/30/facebook-agrees-to-pay-uk-data-watchdogs-cambridge-analytica-fine-but-settles-without-admitting-liability/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/30/facebook-agrees-to-pay-uk-...
- roblabla 7y ago
  Facebook's revenue in 2019 was $70bn. $529bn is 7 times this. I don't think Facebook even generated close to $529bn during the entirety of its lifetime. This is not "probably say": $529bn would just not work. EDIT: If the goal of the fine is to just kill Facebook's presence in Australia, then yeah, I guess it works. But in this case, Facebook won't pay that fine. They'll just stop operating in Australia - in other words, they'll stop taking advertiser money from there. At worst, Australia's govt will block access to FB.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Still, it sounds like a reasonable amount for, as a company, designing a system that helped compromise an election. If FB needs to declare bankruptcy and shutter their doors then nothing of value will be lost.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    It is sometimes necessary to fine a company out of existance, for example when violations are so blatant they lead to death.
  - SolarNet 7y ago
    > $529bn would just not work. If the fine structure's purpose is to prevent companies from doing extremely illegal things. Then it seems to work just fine. Facebook would be unable to repeat this mistake. It's not like there are such things as corporate death sentences in much of the world. So there does need to be a mechanism to ensure that a company that repeatedly flagrantly violates the law is stopped from doing so eventually. Excessive fines are a way to do that, to make it so economically non-viable that it is avoided. Now again, one can argue whether this violation is worthy of that. But on the face of it there is no reason why feasibility of payment is necessary for deciding the amount of a fine. Capitalism has problems with pricing external costs to society. The more common example being things like pollution and climate change (something ironically that Australia is particularity bad at). The price for privacy violations here might be a bit high, but it is an externality worth pricing. The amount of money the government will need to spend fighting identity theft in response to this is just the first order effect. Economic damage from both the identity theft and loss of trust. Mental health damage done from the identity theft and leaked data being used. According to the article the government of Australia prices that at 1,700,000 per person. Which actually sounds like a reasonable amount once one considers paying police to track down thieves, prosecution, jail time, the potential for social services to have to help that person while their life is put back together, and so on. It's the multiplication that screwed them here. That's the part that might not track quite correctly.
dang_ur_dumb 7y ago
The fine should at least be a couple months of free cash flow.
r00fus 7y ago
It's a good start to negotiations. Maybe they'll get $2B from FB. FB will likely fund the current politicians' re-election campaigns in a quid-pro-quo to drop/reduce charges. Either way it's a good move on the part of governments to apply pressure to a known shady actor.
- simonh 7y ago
  Not all countries do politics the same way as the US.
- munk-a 7y ago
  Sigh... nothing you've said above is illegal in the US except doing so by explicit agreement and that's insanely depressing.
jijji 7y ago
sounds like excessive fines/bail violation of the 8th amendment lol
- munk-a 7y ago
  How is this related to the 8th referendum[1]? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Australian_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Australian_referendum
Upvoter33 7y ago
facebook could turn their public perception around in a second by declaring that it is not a political platform and banning political ads. I honestly don't care how much they market me to coke and pepsi, but the impact on democracies is way creepier...
- omgwtfbbqhihihi 7y ago
  The problems with facebook run far deeper than just politics. If you think that doing what you suggest would change perception you are sadly mistaken.
bilekas 7y ago
Now THIS would be a fine that Facebook would surely feel! I am assuming this is some Class Action suite ? Or is this different as its from the privacy watchdog ?
- nineteen999 7y ago
  It's a government body. So the Plaintiff in this case is presumably the Australian Federal Government, in a case in our Federal Court. https://www.oaic.gov.au/ https://www.oaic.gov.au/
  - bilekas 7y ago
    I have an unexplainable urge to scream : "THE LIBERAL GOVERMENT!!!" This is really cool news though, it's about time that Facebook take some serious ownership of this mess.

177 points by ajaviaad 7y ago

Freenergi is a renewable energy startup company based in Indonesia. We provide solar power installation, solar as service and manufacture solar power products to reduce residential customers electricity bill and providing clean energy solutions for indoor and outdoor. We are looking for potentional investor and cofounder for this early stage startup. Please do not hesitate to contact us at freenergi contact page. www.freenergi.com

doublerabbit 7y ago

Good.

rvz 7y ago
Very good indeed. Its a fine fit for a multi-billion dollar company. Unless they get it significantly reduced somehow...
- doublerabbit 7y ago
  Any fine against Facebook is good.

aerovistae 7y ago

yeah that's real likely

ztratar 7y ago

No $529BN fine would ever actually happen. That would be considered economic warfare and the US wouldn't allow it.

candu 7y ago
OTOH, I'd love to see the mental / rhetorical gymnastics demanded of our politicians to defend tech companies from large fines associated with privacy violations while simultaneously excoriating those same companies over privacy violations.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > while simultaneously excoriating those same companies over privacy violations Has there been excoriation over this? I've seen lots of hand-wringing over election interference and addiction. But the privacy complaints have yet to find footing in America.
  - simonh 7y ago
    The US Senate had a hearing over it and the FTC fined Facebook $5bn over the same scandal. Arguably that’s a start.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
WilTimSon 7y ago
What kind of fine do you think would be realistic? I'd be very interested to see Facebook bullied out of a couple billions, although I do think it would be protected somehow, too many people have their interests tied up in it. Still, a precedent being set on this sort of scale would be a good thing, right?
roblabla 7y ago
I mean, what would happen is simply that Facebook would shutdown operations in Australia (Making Facebook Australia declare bankruptcy), pay whatever couple millions is in Facebook Australia's coffers, and the rest of the fine would simply go unpaid. It's not like Australia can fine a foreign company - they can only fine the local branch of the company. There's exactly no way for facebook to pay a fine that's equal to 7 times its annual revenue...
raz32dust 7y ago
Why not? Isn't Australia free to not allow Facebook to operate in their country if they don't pay a fine? And if the US prevents them from doing so by retaliation or sanctions, that would actually be closer to warfare.
- chillacy 7y ago
  The US almost certainly would, at least it did most recently when France wanted to put a digital tax: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078574/france-us-digital-tax-deal-negotiations-tariffs-postponed-trump https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078574/france-us-digita... A consumption tax is a pretty good way to tax foreign companies though imo, as long as your domestic market is desirable.
  - lapnitnelav 7y ago
    If enough countries start doing that, maybe the balance of power might be different. Especially in the West.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    >The US almost certainly would What happened with China? I know FB isn't really operating in China. (At least no one I knew in Ningbo had it?) So did we sanction China for that or how did that all work? Because, and I don't know if we did or didn't, but if we didn't sanction China, why sanction Australia? Was that situation different somehow? (Other than just "China's richer").
- luckylion 7y ago
  > And if the US prevents them from doing so by retaliation or sanctions, that would actually be closer to warfare. So? It's about power, the US has it, Australia doesn't. Australia can fine them a hefty sum, but nothing that looks like an existential threat to the company.
Mirioron 7y ago
Wouldn't whatever legal entity Facebook has set up in Australia just declare bankruptcy? They can't exactly levy fines at a company that's not in their jurisdiction.
ipnon 7y ago
Isn't "economic warfare" a bit of an oxymoron? If it's warfare it involves violence, if it's economic then it involves free trade in the aggregate.
- dx87 7y ago
  Not necessarily. Not everyone uses the same definition of war. The definition I was told in the military is that it's a political tool used when all other methods have failed. So if placing economic sanctions is a last resort, then economic warfare would make sense.

adtac 7y ago

And when the actual fine is just $10bn, the markets will reward FB by increasing their stock price.

vikramkr 7y ago
Those aren't rewards. The price goes down at the opposite of the suit and the fine gets priced in with a given risk factor, and if they end up doing better than expected, then the price will adjust to integrate that new knowledge. It's still lower than if they'd never gotten fined (though perhaps not lower than if they hadn't unethically made that money in the first place)

akmarinov 7y ago

Spoiler: they’ll get away with a couple of mil

poooogles 7y ago

The fact that we (the UK) only fined Facebook £500k [1] is an utter scandal. You can probably say $529bn is too much, but the appropriate amount might be somewhere in the middle of the two... 1. https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/30/facebook-agrees-to-pay-uk-data-watchdogs-cambridge-analytica-fine-but-settles-without-admitting-liability/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/30/facebook-agrees-to-pay-uk-...

roblabla 7y ago
Facebook's revenue in 2019 was $70bn. $529bn is 7 times this. I don't think Facebook even generated close to $529bn during the entirety of its lifetime. This is not "probably say": $529bn would just not work. EDIT: If the goal of the fine is to just kill Facebook's presence in Australia, then yeah, I guess it works. But in this case, Facebook won't pay that fine. They'll just stop operating in Australia - in other words, they'll stop taking advertiser money from there. At worst, Australia's govt will block access to FB.
- munk-a 7y ago
  Still, it sounds like a reasonable amount for, as a company, designing a system that helped compromise an election. If FB needs to declare bankruptcy and shutter their doors then nothing of value will be lost.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  It is sometimes necessary to fine a company out of existance, for example when violations are so blatant they lead to death.
- SolarNet 7y ago
  > $529bn would just not work. If the fine structure's purpose is to prevent companies from doing extremely illegal things. Then it seems to work just fine. Facebook would be unable to repeat this mistake. It's not like there are such things as corporate death sentences in much of the world. So there does need to be a mechanism to ensure that a company that repeatedly flagrantly violates the law is stopped from doing so eventually. Excessive fines are a way to do that, to make it so economically non-viable that it is avoided. Now again, one can argue whether this violation is worthy of that. But on the face of it there is no reason why feasibility of payment is necessary for deciding the amount of a fine. Capitalism has problems with pricing external costs to society. The more common example being things like pollution and climate change (something ironically that Australia is particularity bad at). The price for privacy violations here might be a bit high, but it is an externality worth pricing. The amount of money the government will need to spend fighting identity theft in response to this is just the first order effect. Economic damage from both the identity theft and loss of trust. Mental health damage done from the identity theft and leaked data being used. According to the article the government of Australia prices that at 1,700,000 per person. Which actually sounds like a reasonable amount once one considers paying police to track down thieves, prosecution, jail time, the potential for social services to have to help that person while their life is put back together, and so on. It's the multiplication that screwed them here. That's the part that might not track quite correctly.

dang_ur_dumb 7y ago

The fine should at least be a couple months of free cash flow.

r00fus 7y ago

It's a good start to negotiations. Maybe they'll get $2B from FB. FB will likely fund the current politicians' re-election campaigns in a quid-pro-quo to drop/reduce charges. Either way it's a good move on the part of governments to apply pressure to a known shady actor.

simonh 7y ago
Not all countries do politics the same way as the US.
munk-a 7y ago
Sigh... nothing you've said above is illegal in the US except doing so by explicit agreement and that's insanely depressing.

jijji 7y ago

sounds like excessive fines/bail violation of the 8th amendment lol

munk-a 7y ago
How is this related to the 8th referendum[1]? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Australian_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Australian_referendum

Upvoter33 7y ago

facebook could turn their public perception around in a second by declaring that it is not a political platform and banning political ads. I honestly don't care how much they market me to coke and pepsi, but the impact on democracies is way creepier...

omgwtfbbqhihihi 7y ago
The problems with facebook run far deeper than just politics. If you think that doing what you suggest would change perception you are sadly mistaken.

bilekas 7y ago

Now THIS would be a fine that Facebook would surely feel! I am assuming this is some Class Action suite ? Or is this different as its from the privacy watchdog ?

nineteen999 7y ago
It's a government body. So the Plaintiff in this case is presumably the Australian Federal Government, in a case in our Federal Court. https://www.oaic.gov.au/ https://www.oaic.gov.au/
- bilekas 7y ago
  I have an unexplainable urge to scream : "THE LIBERAL GOVERMENT!!!" This is really cool news though, it's about time that Facebook take some serious ownership of this mess.