6 ms·

Companies need to be slapped with a non-negligible percentage fine of revenue. They will learn fast to respect the law, and by extension, people's privacy.

pvillano 2y ago
I dream of a fines system that has "all the money you made doing this" as a minimum.
- Jyaif 2y ago
  Fines should be at minimum "all the money you made doing this / percentage of chance of getting caught", to keep the profit expectation at 0.
  - emn13 2y ago
    If your aim is to keep profit expectation of violations at no more than zero, then it's also necessary to hold company _owners_ liable for more than their shares are worth. Otherwise, corporations will just play shells games (which they already do for all kinds of liability) to reduce the fines to peanuts via limited liability/bankruptcy. The chance of that reform seems very slim, so perhaps we could at least tax shell companies some percentage of both revenue and value, and not just profits - to represent the real costs of shifting liability. Not that that's likely either, but we can dream.
- paholg 2y ago
  Minimum of "all the money you made doing this" plus a percentage of total revenue, IMO.
exe34 2y ago
even better, define a process where instead of a fine, a percentage of the ownership goes into a national wealth fund. boom, basic income is funded.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Was thinking something similar in the Boeing thread. Force the company to issue a significant number of new common stock, and transfer them to a fund.
RobotToaster 2y ago
And the fines shouldn't be limited in the same way other debt is by limited company status.
dartos 2y ago
In theory that sounds nice, but in practice percentage fines will just result in layoffs of people who are low on the totem pole. Any danger that comes at a big enough company will just result in the company using workers as chaff. At least in the states. We need to find a way to hold decision makers personally responsible
- emn13 2y ago
  If the fines are meaningful, they'll primarily hurt shareholders. It's possible a corporation will try to mitigate some of the costs by downsizing, but that's no different from any other corporation with a non-working business plan. Sparing shareholders for the costs of the choices their leadership made is a recipe for continued disinterest. Why bother appointing boards and CEO's that will avoid this stuff if they're always able to shift the costs to somebody else? Just because a company has employees does not mean it appropriate to shield it from consequences of its actions.
  - dartos 2y ago
    > If the fines are meaningful, they'll primarily hurt shareholders. I’m just not so sure this is true. What kind of fine would hurt shareholders more than the employees that are let go to offset said fine? At least currently, reputation is not represented in the tech market prices. Microsoft had a major security breach in separate products every 4 months last year, and opened this year by shuttering and laying off a large number of recently acquired game studios. They are currently one of the 2 most valuable companies in the world by market cap. What kind of fine could you throw at them?
    - emn13 2y ago
      Ideally, the labor market is competitive. If a company tries to offload it's legal costs to its employees, they'll find work elsewhere, at least in aggregate. Ideally (again), shareholders do not have that option. When a company goes under or significantly downsizes there will of course be impacts on employees. But equally, their competitors' employees may thrive. I want to stress again that the alternative is basically lawlessness. If a company cannot be held to account merely because doing so might hurt employees, then it's in shareholder's interest to ensure the company disregards those laws whenever they get in the way of profits - which they can do by selecting boards and CEOs that are willing to take "risks" (and it seems quite unlikely that's ever likely to change). Those agents of a company might not even be in the same jurisdiction as the law, so trying to exclusively hold them to account seems like a pipe dream. In any case, if laws try to very narrowly focus liability, you're also asking for games of musical chairs, and because it's so easy to create and destroy corporations, that's a game that will often lead to evaporation of any penalties. Shareholders absolutely need to be held to account for the choices their companies make. Even limited liability is a protection with some problematic consequences; we definitely shouldn't make it even easier than it already is to shift burdens onto others or society at large than it already is.
nubinetwork 2y ago
"Okay, we'll just claim bankruptcy and spin up again with a different name"
silexia 2y ago
Better yet, get rid of patents. Patents are what prevent competitors from rising up and that are run by more ethical entrepreneurs that care about their customers.

pvillano 2y ago

I dream of a fines system that has "all the money you made doing this" as a minimum.

Jyaif 2y ago
Fines should be at minimum "all the money you made doing this / percentage of chance of getting caught", to keep the profit expectation at 0.
- emn13 2y ago
  If your aim is to keep profit expectation of violations at no more than zero, then it's also necessary to hold company _owners_ liable for more than their shares are worth. Otherwise, corporations will just play shells games (which they already do for all kinds of liability) to reduce the fines to peanuts via limited liability/bankruptcy. The chance of that reform seems very slim, so perhaps we could at least tax shell companies some percentage of both revenue and value, and not just profits - to represent the real costs of shifting liability. Not that that's likely either, but we can dream.
paholg 2y ago
Minimum of "all the money you made doing this" plus a percentage of total revenue, IMO.

exe34 2y ago

even better, define a process where instead of a fine, a percentage of the ownership goes into a national wealth fund. boom, basic income is funded.

magicalhippo 2y ago
Was thinking something similar in the Boeing thread. Force the company to issue a significant number of new common stock, and transfer them to a fund.

RobotToaster 2y ago

And the fines shouldn't be limited in the same way other debt is by limited company status.

dartos 2y ago

In theory that sounds nice, but in practice percentage fines will just result in layoffs of people who are low on the totem pole. Any danger that comes at a big enough company will just result in the company using workers as chaff. At least in the states. We need to find a way to hold decision makers personally responsible

emn13 2y ago
If the fines are meaningful, they'll primarily hurt shareholders. It's possible a corporation will try to mitigate some of the costs by downsizing, but that's no different from any other corporation with a non-working business plan. Sparing shareholders for the costs of the choices their leadership made is a recipe for continued disinterest. Why bother appointing boards and CEO's that will avoid this stuff if they're always able to shift the costs to somebody else? Just because a company has employees does not mean it appropriate to shield it from consequences of its actions.
- dartos 2y ago
  > If the fines are meaningful, they'll primarily hurt shareholders. I’m just not so sure this is true. What kind of fine would hurt shareholders more than the employees that are let go to offset said fine? At least currently, reputation is not represented in the tech market prices. Microsoft had a major security breach in separate products every 4 months last year, and opened this year by shuttering and laying off a large number of recently acquired game studios. They are currently one of the 2 most valuable companies in the world by market cap. What kind of fine could you throw at them?
  - emn13 2y ago
    Ideally, the labor market is competitive. If a company tries to offload it's legal costs to its employees, they'll find work elsewhere, at least in aggregate. Ideally (again), shareholders do not have that option. When a company goes under or significantly downsizes there will of course be impacts on employees. But equally, their competitors' employees may thrive. I want to stress again that the alternative is basically lawlessness. If a company cannot be held to account merely because doing so might hurt employees, then it's in shareholder's interest to ensure the company disregards those laws whenever they get in the way of profits - which they can do by selecting boards and CEOs that are willing to take "risks" (and it seems quite unlikely that's ever likely to change). Those agents of a company might not even be in the same jurisdiction as the law, so trying to exclusively hold them to account seems like a pipe dream. In any case, if laws try to very narrowly focus liability, you're also asking for games of musical chairs, and because it's so easy to create and destroy corporations, that's a game that will often lead to evaporation of any penalties. Shareholders absolutely need to be held to account for the choices their companies make. Even limited liability is a protection with some problematic consequences; we definitely shouldn't make it even easier than it already is to shift burdens onto others or society at large than it already is.

nubinetwork 2y ago

"Okay, we'll just claim bankruptcy and spin up again with a different name"

silexia 2y ago

Better yet, get rid of patents. Patents are what prevent competitors from rising up and that are run by more ethical entrepreneurs that care about their customers.