27 ms·

'massive' -- by which standards? It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue. And TikTok's global revenue last

• AlchemistCamp 1y ago
  What bearing does their global revenue have on what Ireland has any jurisdiction to fine them? I'm not a fan or user of TikTok, but what they earn on other continents is none of Ireland's business.
  • dmos62 1y ago
    These are global companies. Why pretend you're only dealing with a small fragment of it? I don't see a reason to be overly conservative.
  • _Algernon_ 1y ago
    They choose to operate here. Of course it is Ireland's business.
  • DrScientist 1y ago
    The Irish regulator is acting on behalf of the EU as TikTok European head quarters are in Ireland. And in terms of jurisdiction - it's a bit like you visiting Ireland on holiday and committing a crime - and then arguing they have no jurisdiction over you as you are only there for 2 weeks.
    • _Algernon_ 1y ago
      A more apt comparison is that you get a fine for speeding abroad, and argue that you don't have to pay it because you earned that money in your home country. It's ridiculous.
    • AlchemistCamp 1y ago
      Sure, it's fine for Ireland to punish someone for a crime committed in Ireland, but my question was about what bearing revenue earned on other continents was any business of Ireland's. A more accurate version of your analogy would be Ireland choosing to punish a tourist for littering with a dramatically higher penalty than native Irish would face based on their New York salary.
      • relistan 1y ago
        Because, like many other tech companies, Tiktok is funneling most of their global revenue through Ireland where the corporate tax rate is very low. I don't know the specifics of the mechanism used by Tiktok. But, most companies do this by registering all of their IP through their Irish company and then paying licensing fees to the Irish entity that just happen to be all of their profit abroad. This is why the Irish regulator punches way above its weight globally and is why it is often the entry point for EU regulation on foreign firms.
        • AlchemistCamp 1y ago
          Maybe Alibaba is a better example. Why should Alibaba increasing its global revenue through growth in the Chinese market mean that Ireland should fine it more? If it's because earnings in Ireland or even maybe the entire EU went up, then I can see the justification. But if Alibaba's revenue is going up because of Alibaba improving logistics within China, why should Ireland get anything for that?
          • relistan 1y ago
            In Tiktok's case it's because the revenue is actually flowing through Ireland. EDIT: here's more about the general mechanism I'm referring to https://archive.is/0hcAK https://archive.is/0hcAK
            • AlchemistCamp 1y ago
              One of TikTok’s largest markets is Japan. Their shop revenues in particular, doubled in Japan last year. Those earnings are taxed locally and have nothing to do with Ireland.
  • graemep 1y ago
    Ireland was acting on behalf of the EU, so at the very least the fine should be substantial relative to EU revenues. The law does say global revenues, and I think that is a deterrent to treating fines as just a cost of doing business.
    • AlchemistCamp 1y ago
      Yeah, relative to EU revenues would be fairly reasonable.
  • noirscape 1y ago
    It's a case involving their European customers. If you do business in Europe, there's a bunch of (good!) privacy regulations you have to comply with. One of these is that you're not allowed to transfer the data to a jurisdiction that doesn't follow equivalent protections to the GDPR[0]. TikTok transferred European user data to their Chinese servers, which is a pretty obvious no-go, since the Chinese government is an authoritarian watchdog that inherently can't guarantee these protections (as the GDPR also applies to transferring data to the government.) Ireland has jurisdiction because the EU offers something called the "one stop shop" concept, where a foreign company can declare that they have EU headquarters in a specific member state, and from that point on the only EU regulations they have to directly worry about are how they're implemented in that country in specific[1]. Every major tech company is therefore in Ireland because the country is small enough to essentially steamroll local politicians with lobby money, leading to very lax enforcement until the EU starts applying pressure.[2] [0]: This also causes issues with data transfers to the US, and in the most extreme interpretation, makes it so that you probably can't do business with both Europe and the US at the same time in the first place. This is because of the CLOUD act, which goes across jurisdictions and is something the US government can use to compel any service provider to hand over data. [1]: Of course, a country can still have it's own laws that a company can run afoul of on top of that. [2]: Other countries with this issue are Luxembourg (Fintech companies love Luxembourg because they can just hire all the good lawyers, meaning you can't negotiate legal disputes there effectively) and the Netherlands (which is a EU-based tax haven for large corporations that aren't in either sector.)
    • docdeek 1y ago
      Do you know if there is a reason they would not domicile in Malta? It's an EU Member State, English speaking, and if buying off politicians in Ireland is easy, it must be easier in Malta with a population of only 550,000 people.
      • noirscape 1y ago
        My guess is just physical/lazy reasons. Before this, they were homed in the UK, whose special arrangements meant that they could avoid a lot of EU regulations that way. Then Brexit happened and they just moved to the nearest available option.
  • andrepd 1y ago
    A fine is supposed to be a deterrent to illegal behaviour. Much like a fine of 100€ for speeding is unlikely to dissuade someone driving a Ferrari, a fine directed towards a company needs to be proportional to that company's revenue, or else it will just be factored as a cost of doing business. How much value did tiktok derive from flaunting these privacy laws? It's not entirely unlikely that it was less than 530M€.
  • b112 1y ago
    Absurd. Damages need to be inline with 'how to force corrective behaviour'. They are to be designed to FORCE the company to change how they are behaving. If their global revenue was $1000, and the local revenue is $1, fining them $0.10 isn't going to help much.
  • netdevphoenix 1y ago
    If you breach a regulation or commit a crime in a jurisdiction, your behaviour in other jurisdictions WILL be considered during your judicial process.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • trollbridge 1y ago
    Ireland's business is whatever Ireland wants it to be, if TikTok wants the pleasure of being allowed to operate in Ireland jurisdictions. And yes, everything a multi-billion dollar company does is indeed the government's business - and the people's business. We have a right to regulate them as we see fit.
    • curiousObject 1y ago
      >Ireland's business is whatever Ireland wants it to be Ireland offers a favorable tax and regulatory environment, within the EU, so this punishment is not only Ireland’s business. It represents the EU.
  • scott_w 1y ago
    Why not? A country can, for the most part, set whatever level of fines they want within law. You can make an argument about the practicality of any given punishment but that's separate from the morality (which, from the tone of your comment, I assume is where you're coming from).
    • AlchemistCamp 1y ago
      Sure. A country can set "whatever level of fines they want within law". For example, Russia assessed a $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 against Google. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/31/tech/google-fines-russia/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/31/tech/google-fines-russia/... At the base level, I suppose my point was about morality, but my intent was about rationality. A country can write laws that it can take all the money a company earns across the entire globe, but it's not a very reasonable position, IMO.
      • scott_w 1y ago
        Why is it not reasonable? Because it outweighs the harm? Because it could shut down a company? Because it’s unenforceable? Because of some “it looks silly to me” standard? I can tell you Russia’s “fine” is not reasonable because it’s not enforceable and exists to be purely performative. It’s not the same thing as Ireland putting a fine based on global revenue but still within their power to enforce.
  • rsynnott 1y ago
    These secrets are contained deep within the article, which of course it is highly improper to read on this here orange website: > The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin. This is likely under the GDPR, whose penalties are based on global revenue. If TikTok doesn't like it, it is of course free to cease activity in Europe (strictly speaking the GDPR also protects European citizens outside of Europe, but in practice if a company doesn't operate in Europe there is little that the EU can do).
• charlieyu1 1y ago
  €530M is enough to be a deterrent under normal circumstances. Now we all know it is not normal but then it should be handled with a lawsuit/law enforcement. Don’t think any organisation is going to do that far alone.
• lolinder 1y ago
  To hurt enough to be worth changing the fines don't have to be a fraction of their global revenue, they have to be significantly more than the benefit gained from the illegal behavior. According to that article TikTok made $10B of that $20B in the US alone, which puts a cap on their European revenue of $10B (likely significantly less because this ignores Brazil and Indonesia, which according to the linked article are its largest markets by user count). €530m is ~$600m, so this fine is at least 6% of their relevant 2024 revenue, and likely substantially higher. I don't know enough about their business practices to know if that's a big enough chunk to make up for what they gain by cheating, but it's definitely not a wrist slap.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • lukeschlather 1y ago
    The thing is, TikTok is not accused of directly profiting off of this, they are accused of operating as part of the Chinese espionage apparatus. Assuming that this is the case, TikTok is going to be happy to continue paying fines as long as they break even worldwide. And the US is making no serious attempts to rein in this sort of behavior so they've got all that US profit to use.
    • TechDebtDevin 1y ago
      I've still yet to see any evidence that TikTok is anymore of a spying/espionage tool than your average app on any device. But I guess if people just keep repeating that It will make it true. Never mind, I forgot, Western Intelligence orgs are trusted sources of truth and definitely wouldn't spy on me or lie to me. My Bad!
      • SequoiaHope 1y ago
        I don’t think anyone credible is taking the position that Meta and Google and Microsoft don’t spy for the US government but TikTok does spy for the Chinese government. This is simply a transparent double standard.
• PurpleRamen 1y ago
  > 'massive' -- by which standards? Other fines? Going by amount, it seems somewhere in the top 20 of highest single case fines of all time. Top 3 if we just look at privacy fines in Europe. > It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue How does "getting used to it" changes the classification? It's still a massive amount, even it such numbers are becoming more common. And especially as they should not become common.
  • Rygian 1y ago
    The point being that the actual absolute amount should not get as much attention as the percentage of revenue it represents.
    • PeterStuer 1y ago
      If I have 100M€ in revenue with a 60% margin, a 6% revenue fine while not negliable can be brushed off as the price of doing business. If I have 100M€ revenue with a 2% margin, a 6% fine might mean bankruptcy.
      • eastbound 1y ago
        If you have 18% margin (a more reasonable assumption in most IT), then it brings it down by 30%. Investors will care very much. Except state actors.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• dmix 1y ago
  How is $600M not massive?
  • rsynnott 1y ago
    Arguably it's still at a level where it could be considered a cost of doing business. One school of thought is that for corporate punishment to be an effective deterrent it has to be _existential_; if you tell a company "if you do an illegal thing that makes you an extra billion dollars a year, we might eventually get around to fining you a few hundred million", then the rational company will say "sure, send us the bill whenever", and get on with doing the illegal thing.
  • ziddoap 1y ago
    When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue, rather than an absolute number, it's not really all that massive. It's like 3% or so. And you can't really just look at the 3%, you have to factor in what benefits (money, political sway, whatever) they received in exchange for the data. For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 years... They would have made a profit despite the fine! ($150M is obviously pulled out of my ass, just as a demonstration of how when you look at the fines from a bigger context, it might just be a line item on the expense report that's worth taking the risk on)
    • dmix 1y ago
      > When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue, I've always found this viewpoint a bit childish, with little regard for how businesses work IRL (even the ignoring the obvious profits vs revenue part). Reminds me of how every comment section re: some crime story is people calling for death penalty or how a mob should kill them first. Justice is never that simple. I understand people want businesses they don't like to simply not exist anymore but that doesn't mean it's rational to throw up insane fines because you spent 2min doing back of a napkin math of revenue * (imaginary deterrent %) > For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 years... They would have made a profit despite the fine! The Chinese government doesn't need to pay companies to exfiltrate data from companies within their reach.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  You think TikTok cares about money? They're a propaganda arm. They don't give a shit about profitability.
  • Mistletoe 1y ago
    Will they really pay it though? I don’t know the rules, etc.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
      They'll probably fight it and pay it if they risk being kicked out of Ireland or the EU.
  • TechDebtDevin 1y ago
    Weird that a "communist propaganda arm" would donate millions upon millions to RIGHT WING American Politicians/Parties who oppose almost all leftist beliefs, and have a board made up partly of Western Capitalists. [0]: https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-campaign-donations-tiktok-bytedance-ae21bfa3 https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-campaign-donations-ti... [1]: https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/tiktok-ceo-trump-inauguration-shou-chew-big-tech-rcna187998 https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/tiktok-ceo-tr... [2]: https://mezha.media/en/2025/01/17/tiktok-to-be-the-main-sponsor-of-donald-trump-s-inauguration-party/ https://mezha.media/en/2025/01/17/tiktok-to-be-the-main-spon... Seems pretty dumb if you're a Chinese Propaganda wings to fund foreign political opponents who literally want your society to fail. But I guess if Western Intelligence sources tell you they are a propaganda wing IT MUST BE TRUE!
    • _DeadFred_ 1y ago
      People say that Israel propped up Hamas in the past so not really that weird on a conceptual level.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
      What's weird that an expansionist superpower would donate to the isolationists of another superpower?
• tlb 1y ago
  Worse than the small amount is the length of time it took. If you accept the accusations at face value, China has been spying on a large fraction of EU citizens for 4 years and can keep doing it for another 6 months (after which they probably won't actually stop) for the eventual fine of a few dollars per victim. The US isn't moving any faster, and most other countries aren't moving at all. So the end result is that potentially hostile countries can run vast spying operations for a long time with no major consequences. As long as they do it with funny videos with annoying soundtracks.
  • hbarka 1y ago
    Does Meta or X get the same scrutiny or is this the China bogeyman?
    • input_sh 1y ago
      X is rumored to be hit with a billion dollar fine soon(ish), so yes: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/technology/eu-penalties-x-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/technology/eu-penalties-x...
    • Macha 1y ago
      Yes: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/23/tech/european-union-apple-meta-fines-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/23/tech/european-union-apple... Meta has had multiple rounds of €xxxM fines already from the EU.
      • platinumrad 1y ago
        The EU is fairly consistent in its application of fines. I think what the poster is commenting on is that when Meta collects data it's "Meta is spying", but when ByteDance collects data it's "China is spying".
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • ipaddr 1y ago
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• crazygringo 1y ago
  Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior. If global revenue is $20B and we assume 20% profitability, that's $4B, and so this fine is 15% of global profit. That's a gigantic fine. You also have to remember that tons of these regulations are vague and unclear and massively open to interpretation, and that companies can genuinely believe they are complying, and their lawyers agree, but then judges still rule otherwise, because it's ultimately just a matter of opinion because of the vagueness. You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior.
  • lmkg 1y ago
    > You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior. This is explicitly not a concern under GDPR. The "one-stop shop" mechanism means that all issues across the EU get funneled to the lead supervisory authority, which is always Ireland because that's where EU subsidiaries are headquarters for tax purposes.
    • gundmc 1y ago
      Yes, but there are countries outside of the EU who may also decide to fine based on global revenue.
      • ta1243 1y ago
        Either obey the law in those countries, or don't do business there.
  • Macha 1y ago
    > Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior. Nah, hollywood accounting is alive and well in tech. Especially in Ireland, where plenty of tech companies are being "charged" slightly absurd fees for services or trademark licenses by subsidiaries or parents in other countries to avoid making a profit on their tax filings.
• _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  Someone here floated that instead of fines it should be government ownership in the company. You dilute the original owners, so they get punished for bad behavior. As a part owner, the government is now 'inside' and has a whole lot more visibility/ability to request information. And over time, should bad behavior continue, the government gains control. Look at a company like Tesla whose stock is super high but profits low. A percentage of profits wouldn't mater to them. But government control via stock would get their attention and the attention of stock owners real quick.
• hulitu 1y ago
  > 'massive' -- by which standards? By "EC" [1] standards. If you not pay for the product "EC", you are the product. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon pay good money to "EC". [1] European commision.