3 ms·

You 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 ago
Because 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 ago
  By 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 ago
    Like 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 ago
      And 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 ago
        Most rich people still make money when they're in jail. Only people who work for a living stop making money.
        Retric 4mo ago
        Rich 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 ago
      That'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 ago
        Damn, 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%.
        aidenn0 4mo ago
        If they had even temporarily impounded the car it probably would cost the driver more than the ticket, since exotic cars are likely to get damaged when towed. Note that driving laws are entirely at the state level in the US, and this was California, which is among the most driver-friendly places in the (already driver-friendly) US. There are places in the US where the license could have been suspended for this (though typically with a duration measured in days, not years).
  - jmholla 4mo ago
    I don't think that logic works. In your vein, if I say " If it gets hotter, I'll want it to be colder" that would imply that if it gets colder I'll want it to be hotter. That doesn't necessarily have to be the case thought. If they made a profit and I want them to pay more than the base fine doesn't mean if they made a loss I want them to pay less than the base fine. I think the rest of your come t stands though. There is difficulty I proving profit and Hollywood accounting can probably change those numbers.
    - fc417fc802 4mo ago
      It's not about what you want nor is it about exacting revenge. The end goal is simply a marketplace where a given behavior isn't happening. Appropriately structured fines should accomplish that.
      - kmoser 4mo ago
        It's a nice theory, but only works if the company gets caught and fined enough times to make a difference. Even a zillion dollar fine is useless if the law isn't applied. Also, when the fine comes out of corporate coffers, not individuals' pockets, there is less incentive to comply with the law. If you really want results, fines should come out of management's personal bank accounts, not to mention some jail time.
        fc417fc802 4mo ago
        Sure, if the regulator doesn't move to enforce then the law won't have any effect but at least to me that sounds like a problem with the government as opposed to a justification for draconian penalties. Targeting management seems like a tactic that should only be employed where great urgency exists such as life threatening danger. I don't think marketing material is anywhere close to qualifying. I hate my inbox being inundated with spam as much as the next guy but that doesn't mean drawing and quartering the perpetrators is justified.
        kmoser 4mo ago
  - karlgkk 4mo ago
    > By that logic regulators should lower fines if the action wasn’t profitable No? You don’t need to adjust the floor, only the ceiling. The goal is to prevent businesses from pricing fines into their margins.
  - coldtea 4mo ago
    >By that logic regulators should lower fines if the action wasn’t profitable. The logic isn't some rigid "make the fine based on the profit". The logic is based on the intent: make the behavior happen less. So you can have a base fine of X, even when there's no profit or even if there are losses, and have a scalable fine based on higher profits. This way the company is discouraged to do the bad behavior in general, and is ALSO discouraged to do the bad behavior even if it's profitable.
    - Retric 4mo ago
      Nobody is giving people at a government agency the authority to write arbitrary fines, there’s going to be at minimum guidelines. If the base fine is X, then every actual fine would be X + Y where Y is the profit motive causing the behavior. As such every court case is now also a fight about lowering Y and companies are incentivized to make Y appear lower etc. Further as companies vary in size generally at large companies Y will be vastly larger than X meaning lowering Y is nearly as valuable at winning.
- fc417fc802 4mo ago
  This 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 ago
    Up 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 ago
      You 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 ago
        Huh. 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 ago
Well, 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?

anakaine 4mo ago

Because 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 ago
By 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 ago
  Like 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 ago
    And 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 ago
      Most rich people still make money when they're in jail. Only people who work for a living stop making money.
      - Retric 4mo ago
        Rich 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 ago
    That'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 ago
      Damn, 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%.
      - aidenn0 4mo ago
        If they had even temporarily impounded the car it probably would cost the driver more than the ticket, since exotic cars are likely to get damaged when towed. Note that driving laws are entirely at the state level in the US, and this was California, which is among the most driver-friendly places in the (already driver-friendly) US. There are places in the US where the license could have been suspended for this (though typically with a duration measured in days, not years).
- jmholla 4mo ago
  I don't think that logic works. In your vein, if I say " If it gets hotter, I'll want it to be colder" that would imply that if it gets colder I'll want it to be hotter. That doesn't necessarily have to be the case thought. If they made a profit and I want them to pay more than the base fine doesn't mean if they made a loss I want them to pay less than the base fine. I think the rest of your come t stands though. There is difficulty I proving profit and Hollywood accounting can probably change those numbers.
  - fc417fc802 4mo ago
    It's not about what you want nor is it about exacting revenge. The end goal is simply a marketplace where a given behavior isn't happening. Appropriately structured fines should accomplish that.
    - kmoser 4mo ago
      It's a nice theory, but only works if the company gets caught and fined enough times to make a difference. Even a zillion dollar fine is useless if the law isn't applied. Also, when the fine comes out of corporate coffers, not individuals' pockets, there is less incentive to comply with the law. If you really want results, fines should come out of management's personal bank accounts, not to mention some jail time.
      - fc417fc802 4mo ago
        Sure, if the regulator doesn't move to enforce then the law won't have any effect but at least to me that sounds like a problem with the government as opposed to a justification for draconian penalties. Targeting management seems like a tactic that should only be employed where great urgency exists such as life threatening danger. I don't think marketing material is anywhere close to qualifying. I hate my inbox being inundated with spam as much as the next guy but that doesn't mean drawing and quartering the perpetrators is justified.
        kmoser 4mo ago
- karlgkk 4mo ago
  > By that logic regulators should lower fines if the action wasn’t profitable No? You don’t need to adjust the floor, only the ceiling. The goal is to prevent businesses from pricing fines into their margins.
- coldtea 4mo ago
  >By that logic regulators should lower fines if the action wasn’t profitable. The logic isn't some rigid "make the fine based on the profit". The logic is based on the intent: make the behavior happen less. So you can have a base fine of X, even when there's no profit or even if there are losses, and have a scalable fine based on higher profits. This way the company is discouraged to do the bad behavior in general, and is ALSO discouraged to do the bad behavior even if it's profitable.
  - Retric 4mo ago
    Nobody is giving people at a government agency the authority to write arbitrary fines, there’s going to be at minimum guidelines. If the base fine is X, then every actual fine would be X + Y where Y is the profit motive causing the behavior. As such every court case is now also a fight about lowering Y and companies are incentivized to make Y appear lower etc. Further as companies vary in size generally at large companies Y will be vastly larger than X meaning lowering Y is nearly as valuable at winning.
fc417fc802 4mo ago
This 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 ago
  Up 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 ago
    You 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 ago
      Huh. 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 ago

Well, 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?