4 ms·
It's important to raise the topic of a lawsuit here, as distinct from the concept of a government fine, which exposes, in my opinion, an error in the reasoning
by cvoss 3y ago
It's important to raise the topic of a lawsuit here, as distinct from the concept of a government fine, which exposes, in my opinion, an error in the reasoning of the line you quoted.
If you are speeding and get hit with a $X speeding ticket, this does not suggest that the local authorities believe the threat to public safety you were caught making is somehow worth $X in damages. It means the local authorities believe an $X fine is sufficient to deter you from doing this again, and that the prospect of an $X fine is sufficient to deter others from doing this in the first place.
Now, if you actually cause injury or damage, we are in a whole different ball park and you may be sued for a heck of lot more than $X. The value of damages should be expected to far exceed the value of a fine.
So getting back to the quote from the article, I don't think it makes sense to put the fine amount on one side of the scales and the damage caused on the other. That's not what fines are for. The fine money won't even go to the injured party anyway.
- thfuran 3y agoWhat belongs on the other side of the scales is the revenue generated by the illegal telemarketing.
- sangnoir 3y agoThat's a non-sequitur for fines. I'm going to be fined the same for speeding whether I'm late for my flight (no financial return), or I'm participating in an illegal street race in which I win $10,000. Some spamming campaigns do not expect revenue (e.g. recent convictions for a targeted voter misinformation robocall campaign whose desired outcome was to discourage the targets from voting). Tying fines to revenue won't affect the $0-revenue campaigns
- thfuran 3y agoI'm not saying that the fine should be some fixed percentage of the revenue, I'm saying that it absolutely must be high enough to ensure the expected profit of just eating the fines and carrying on is negative. A sufficiently small fraction of speeding is revenue-generating that it's likely not worth the trouble, but in that example, you should probably be fined $10,050 or something. Though speeding tickets are a bit different because they already also come with points and a path to revocation of license.
- thayne 3y agoIt impacts how large a fine needs to be to be an effective deterrent. If you get a fine of 2 cents per call, and you have an average benefit of 50 cents per call, then the fine is just an operating expense, and doesn't deter you from continuing the behavior.
- lupire 3y agoBad example. Speeding fines are set to be low enough to not deter you, and be lower than the transaction costs of fighting them, so the government can maintain a revenue source.