3 ms·

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

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.
poooogles 7y ago
> This is not "probably say" I'm not sure British English translates over the internet that well, but this was hyperbole.
riquito 7y ago
Fines are not maxed out at the amount of money the culprit can give, which in and itself can be quite difficult to determine (I don't want to enter the merit of the amount requested being right/wrong).
nixass 7y ago
Facebook with its core business should cease to exist anyway and this is good step forward in doing so, there's is nothing wrong with this fine.

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.

poooogles 7y ago

> This is not "probably say" I'm not sure British English translates over the internet that well, but this was hyperbole.

riquito 7y ago

Fines are not maxed out at the amount of money the culprit can give, which in and itself can be quite difficult to determine (I don't want to enter the merit of the amount requested being right/wrong).

nixass 7y ago

Facebook with its core business should cease to exist anyway and this is good step forward in doing so, there's is nothing wrong with this fine.