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And how much did it make them over those 5 years?
by peaseagee 4mo ago
And how much did it make them over those 5 years?
- Retric 4mo agoThe fine is only part of the story. They likely spent more money than the fine fighting it over 5 years as fines increase next time if you don’t stop.
- coldtea 4mo agoAnd how much did it make them over those 5 years?
- aucisson_masque 4mo agoYou don't know how much it did cost them. Why would you care about how much they gained ? You can't compare something when you have neither value.
- anakaine 4mo agoBecause if, as the regulator, you fail to benchmark what they gained then your laws can be ignored and your fines paid as simply a cost of doing business. Its why you find the Australian regulator for consumer affairs handing out $200m+ fines to telecommunications companies, for example.
- Retric 4mo agoBy that logic regulators should lower fines if the action wasn’t profitable. Which creates an expensive legal fight around the net profits of some action were after guilt is determined. Instead, it’s much better to scale fines based on the scale of the entity involved, which also results in huge fines, but it’s easier to measure revenue. Thus the fines are more broadly effective, and you can still escalate if they don’t stop.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- tux1968 4mo agoLike in Finland where speeding ticket fines are based on your income. For instance, in one well known case a businessman was fined €121,000 for going 82 km/h in a 50 km/h zone.
- dataflow 4mo agoAnd before anyone calls this crazy, note that jail time costs you your time, whatever that's worth. This is the same idea without the physical incarceration.
- TurdF3rguson 4mo agoMost rich people still make money when they're in jail. Only people who work for a living stop making money.
- Retric 4mo agoRich and retired are very different thing. A CEO can be out hundreds of millions due to a long prison sentence, but most fines don’t scale nearly that far.
- aidenn0 4mo agoThat's considerably more than someone near me who was doing 245km/h in a 90 zone (Well 55mph which is 89km/h). I still don't know why that person didn't lose their license (other than the obvious fact that they were rich enough to afford the Lamborghini that they were driving in); it wasn't just any 55 zone, it was one with a reputation for being dangerous.
- sehansen 4mo agoDamn, it sucks that people are allowed to get away with that kind of speed. Here in Denmark the mandatory minimum for doing over 200 km/h is losing your license for 3 years, confiscation of the vehicle and a ~$2000 fine. Unfortunately punishment isn't enough to get rid of this thing as around 1000 cars are confiscated each year. Some of them are confiscated for other reasons, like driving with a BAC above 0.2%.
- fc417fc802 4mo agoThis entire issue is sidestepped by having graduated fines (which GDPR has). If they keep doing it the amount keeps going up until eventually they go out of business. It really limits the ability to take advantage of the system which hopefully makes it not worthwhile to bother doing.
- moi2388 4mo agoUp to 4% of turnover. So if they make more than that it is still profitable to keep going. Not that it is likely that they make that much in profit, but still. There probably shouldn’t be a limit, and there probably should be personal legal consequences such as jail time for repeat offenders.
- Retric 4mo agoYou can apply a fine multiple times in a year if they don’t stop. As that 4% is based on global revenue you’re eventually going to make it unprofitable.
- fc417fc802 4mo agoHuh. Any idea if it's individual fines or total fines that are capped? It never occurred to me before. Anyway this is all purely academic. 99% of violations aren't going to increase profit by more than the maximum fine (or even anywhere remotely near that) thus it seems to me that the law has sufficiently broad coverage for addressing a behavior that does not directly result in physical injury.
- coldtea 4mo agoWell, isn't that my point exactly? So the parent saying "The fine is only part of the story. They likely spent more money than the fine fighting it over 5 years as fines increase next time if you don’t stop" doesn't invalidate the question of the grandparent, that, "sure, the fine cost them X, but how much they made?" Even if the total cost (fine+fighting it in court) was larger, the question remains: yes, and what's that compared to what they made?
- AlexanderHanff 4mo agoThe fine is largely irrelevant, now they have faced enforcement we have a decision to file a Representative Actions Directive (equivalent of a US class action) claim with - the cost of that will be 100-1000x more than the fine and will likely lead to shareholder revolt as well (institutional shareholders will likely sue the parent Currys PLC for breach of fiduciary duty and not disclosing these issues during earnings calls and annual reports.) So the fine is the first step to a much wider legal action. The fine also puts other loyalty clubs on notice that if they do this, they are going to face consequences - so it has a much wider impact than simply monetary.
- Hikikomori 4mo agoDid Elgiganten change how it works yet? Just for fun I signed up. During the signup they say that by becoming a member you accept that they will send things via email etc, but its optional to accept this, you can still click the signup button but then you don't get membership status, you just get an account. Then on the kundklubb page it says that you are not a member, if you click join it will automatically enable email, sms and phone communication, but you can disable them.
- AlexanderHanff 4mo agoYes this is the difference, they did not allow you to opt out previously, they explicitly said that if you want to be in the club you have to accept their spam. Now they allow you not to accept their spam. Now they rely on Soft Opt-In (which again might not be valid in your case, if you signed up to their site but didn't actually buy anything the soft opt-in exemption does not apply) so you may still have an actionable complaint here.