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1.2B is less than 1% of Meta's revenue in FY2024. Maximum fines for infractions like these should exist on a sliding scale, as some percentage of prior revenue.
by ryukoposting 1y ago
1.2B is less than 1% of Meta's revenue in FY2024. Maximum fines for infractions like these should exist on a sliding scale, as some percentage of prior revenue.
- gloxkiqcza 1y agoThe point was it’s two orders of magnitude more than the original comment stated. Also 1% of yearly revenue is not insignificant.
- efilife 1y agoHow is it not? Will anyone actually feel this fine?
- gloxkiqcza 1y agoYoY percentages are usually presented with one decimal place of precision. This makes the number drop by one whole percentage point. It impacts net profit margin and profit numbers even more. Literally everyone up to the C level executives, board of directors and shareholders will notice and care about this. The missing money could have been invested into making more money in the future or payed out as dividends. Instead it’s gone. This also means all employees feel this because it affects the prospects of their raises, management pressure and in the end whether they get to keep their job or not. (I’m not saying the recent layoffs were caused by this but it sure as hell didn’t help.) Every single penny matters to a capitalist corporation and this was not pennies.
- birn559 1y agoSomething that you can sensibly express as a fraction of the revenue of Meta is significant though. It must be low enough that Meta never seriously considers to pull out of Europe.
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago> It must be low enough that Meta never seriously considers to pull out of Europe. Why? Threathening is one thing, actually leaving one of the largest markets is something different. Also, not much of value would be lost. > Something that you can sensibly express as a fraction of the revenue of Meta is significant though. Also, if the percentage is low, it just becomes the "cost of doing business" and not a fine that would actually make them rethink and not do stuff like that again.
- fzuck686 1y ago[dead]
- okanat 1y agoWhy do you think Zuck became a wannabe fascho out of nowhere? DMA and GDPR fines will hurt Meta a lot when they are due. Zuck is trying to leverage Trump and the war to nullify the fines.
- brookst 1y agoProbably best indexed to profit rather than revenue. 10% of revenue would be a one quarter’s profit for meta, but more than a year’s profit for Amazon and about 9 years of profit for Otto. Higher margins / profits should mean higher fines.
- disgruntledphd2 1y agoThe laws specify revenue, to avoid transfer pricing removing all fineable profits. Live by the sword, die by the sword I guess.
- brookst 1y agoThis isn’t live/die/sword. This is “low margin companies held to a higher standard than high margins companies”. It hurts Otto a lot more to lose 9 years of profit than it hurts Amazon to lose one quarter.
- disgruntledphd2 1y agoIf there hadn't been such transfer pricing shenanigans, then the laws would have been written on profit. Because there's little to no profit shown in many entities in the EU, the laws were written on revenue. More generally, the whole point of getting absurdly large (and such to be covered by DMA etc) is precisely to extract more monopoly profits. GDPR is different, in that one can easily imagine a low margin company getting hurt by this, but in that case they should invest in compliance, rather like these (mostly US) companies do for US laws.
- account42 1y agoProfit doesn't include employee and especially executive compensation, i.e. what the perpetrators were paid.
- brookst 1y agoSure. But it’s what shareholders care about. Who are you trying to punish financially if not the shareholders?
- rsynnott 1y agoThey actually do; max GDPR penalty is 4% global revenue, say. Of course the concern would be that even at that rate some companies might see it as a cost of doing business.
- ryukoposting 1y agoI'd be inclined to go with something closer to 40%, or 400%.