Submitted by bubblehack3r t3_z6wlur in technology
Comments
Thediciplematt t1_iy3htde wrote
They lost a lot of revenue since the switch to VR so I hope this makes them stutter.
nomofica t1_iy3yqjv wrote
When Facebook expanded to other things beyond social media and advertising, they started managing all that under the parent company of Meta. They're separate legal entities because they are responsible for different things. Both entities are failing.
SmashTagLives t1_iy3zscf wrote
Seems like one of the main reasons governments refuse to shut down big tech is to fine it.
driatic t1_iy4208e wrote
And literally no consequences in the US.
_________FU_________ t1_iy422fv wrote
Mark said, “everyone shut the fuck up for…28 seconds…”
…
“Ok we just covered that fine…as you were.”
PanJaszczurka t1_iy452fs wrote
I saw that someone use new measurement of burning money in Theranos per month.
meBottleOfScrampy t1_iy476fg wrote
This is a joke. That money is nothing compared to the wealth and worth of the company.
Most people wont pay attention to their malpractices, so assuming this is one of those acts that damage the company image is not that valid, so why not just fine them in billions?
AnBearna t1_iy47n0l wrote
Thunderf00t I think.
Bernie_Ecclestone t1_iy489qe wrote
They are definitely not separate legal entities. All the apps + VR are housed under the company Meta.
HereToDoThingz t1_iy4biiy wrote
Yeah just shows how old and decrepit our politicians are. They're so far behind on meaningful legislation and just touch dicks about the economy all day. Shit like this needs to be regulated and not just by California.
unmerciful_DM_B_Lo t1_iy4crea wrote
What a fucking joke of a fine
henrebotha t1_iy4eg9u wrote
>I didn't know you could just make a separate entity when your company is going to shit to hide your shitty company
Oldest trick in the business book.
Johny_D_Doe t1_iy4fs5y wrote
"Monday’s decision is the third time Ireland has fined Meta and its subsidiaries, including WhatsApp and Instagram, in a privacy case over the past 15 months, bringing the combined financial penalties to the equivalent of more than $900 million. The other cases relate to Instagram’s handling of children’s data and WhatsApp’s transparency about how it handles user information."
This is the 4th 3rd fine for them, totalling to some 1bln. There are 9 other cases in progress in Ireland alone.
This does not seem to be much in itself, but continuously ignoring EU rules is not a good long term strategy.
explision t1_iy4h00k wrote
Good old patriot act
Johny_D_Doe t1_iy4h2on wrote
International taxation and using its loopholes to pay the absolute minimum in taxes can become a b!tch in other areas...
Also, when you try to use all the data that you get from your different users (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) you need one umbrella entity in the EU, otherwise you cannot just simply sell customer data between Facebook and, say, Insta.
745395 t1_iy4j1bn wrote
Native company. Must be protected. Billion dollar fines are reserved for companies from our adversaries.
MajorKoopa t1_iy4j1fd wrote
$275m is a toll. It’s not going to stop anything.
thesuffixx t1_iy4ji4q wrote
They definitely are separate legal entities. Meta is the umbrella company for Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram
FishFettish t1_iy4jnd9 wrote
I mean, they did. Like 0.095% of their worth 👍🏻
Way-Reasonable t1_iy4jvft wrote
One meeelllllion dollars /Dr Evil
No_Run5644 t1_iy4kfra wrote
Now do twitter
filthmrchristian t1_iy4kmig wrote
Should have been 20 times bigger.
Bernie_Ecclestone t1_iy4la26 wrote
Meta Platforms LLC is the one and only entity - Facebook, etc are absolutely not separately operating companies. They are organizations under Meta.
Prodigy195 t1_iy4lzo1 wrote
Not just old and decrepit, bought and paid for.
Even if they understood privacy, data, tech to the level of an expert computer scientist it wouldn't matter when they get paid bank to not do anything about it.
CompassionateCedar t1_iy4o3ii wrote
4% of yearly revenue is the maximum fine Europe can impose. I can’t imagine what would more appropriate for a fine like that than collecting data on every European with internet access without them even having a Facebook account.
And that data being collected for the sole purpose of selling it to the highest bidder
thesuffixx t1_iy4otf1 wrote
Honestly how can you think that a company as large as Meta only has one legal entity? I think we are saying the same thing but yoh are misunderstanding what a legal entity is maybe?
sassergaf t1_iy4oyia wrote
The fine may be a joke.
Data scraping is not a joke.
Ganrokh t1_iy4q6bl wrote
It's a convenience fee.
[deleted] t1_iy4r7js wrote
[deleted]
Niburu-Illyria t1_iy4t2b9 wrote
Forgive my ignorance, but how does stuff like this end up affecting the average citizen? I have Nord and whatnot, but i dont really know to what effect this kind of data scraping /does/. Genuinely interested!
Deranged40 t1_iy4t3ip wrote
> 4% of yearly revenue is the maximum fine Europe can impose.
This means, anything that is "not legal" in Europe must now increase revenue by 5% or more to get a green light at the company.
I'm glad that they had the corporate interests in mind when setting that cap at 4%. Wouldn't want to hurt a company for doing wrong, would you?
FilledWithGravel t1_iy4t687 wrote
Following an article here, https://www.itpro.com/general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/who-benefits-from-gdpr-fines it seems that GDPR fines go wherever the local country's laws tell it to go. The article focused on UK and how their fines went to their general treasury, which leads me to assume the fines from Ireland just go to the Irish government. But if it's an international fine, who knows.
GetOutOfTheWhey t1_iy4vprm wrote
cost of doing business.
When are these fines going to be percentage based off profits?
AuthorizedShitPoster t1_iy4y5fu wrote
FaCeBoOk pArEnT mEtA
CompassionateCedar t1_iy506jj wrote
It’s worldwide revenue not just in the EU and revenue is a lot more than profit.
If Amazon were to get a 4% revenue fine that would be equal to 72% of their yearly profit. Meaning it would seriously eat into their margins.
Facebook had about 1/10 of their revenue as profit so a 4% fine would take about half their yearly profits. Doing something illegal in Europe to double your worldwide profit seems not so easy to do.
Royal-Ad-2088 t1_iy5423x wrote
Non paywall link?
burnerphone123455 t1_iy54kfz wrote
Why do people still use FB? Genuinely curious.
MaintenanceFinal9959 t1_iy5ab8p wrote
Can you help building a business of the furure on PayPal Fundraisers? Every little bit helps! https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8PoPT7a49y
OkIndependence2374 t1_iy5ajta wrote
FUCK Meta. FUCK Zuckerberg, Bezos, Trump, and anyone with money that didn't earn it.
dkran t1_iy5cee2 wrote
Sold and combined properly through data brokers this could include everything from your average bank account balance, income, debt, name, address, phone number, interests, interests you may have on the sly, etc.
dkran t1_iy5cmvy wrote
They’re slowly wearing him down (or his investors are and he’s wearing himself down). Dude has lost like 100 billion this year and is still trying to blow smoke up peoples asses.
I’d like to see more actual regulation in data, especially within the US
SitDownKawada t1_iy5elag wrote
Irish law says that the fines go to the government accounts
https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/act/2018/7/eng/enacted/a0718.pdf
Jernsaxe t1_iy5fiy4 wrote
Fines are a cost of doing business for large companies. Until executives get jail time this will never stop.
That being said the fines EU are giving out does have some substance and hopefully in the future breaking EU law will be expensive enough that companies have to change their ways.
dannyapplesauce t1_iy5l09y wrote
Look at what JNJ is doing with their baby powder lawsuits. they are pulling a Texas two step to offload liabilities from the litigation into a newly created business that would then seek bankruptcy protection.
clambersand t1_iy5mb0u wrote
Copy paste?
Trueslyforaniceguy t1_iy5ny8o wrote
Put a B in there if you want them to care.
5kM6v2FMKfN8WU6 t1_iy5omni wrote
Honestly all of those are pretty weak cases, the EU needs to start focusing more on on-platform misuse than 3rd party issues.
This particular case is about a third party that scraped data from Facebook, which is incredibly hard to combat since it does not involve any integration with FB.
If they objective is to just make every single profile private then they should just state that already.
5kM6v2FMKfN8WU6 t1_iy5oy0s wrote
data scraping is a joke too, they're fining meta because someone else scraped them. That's like fining a hotel because someone stole your car from their parking lot.
5kM6v2FMKfN8WU6 t1_iy5p3jt wrote
its combined and aggregated somewhere and then bad actors will try to break into your accounts using that information.
Your email from one site, password from another, geoIP, profile picture, etc.
Best practice is use a password manager w a diff pass on each site, use 2fac where you can
paceminterris t1_iy5v3ta wrote
It's not because they're old. It's because they're paid to look the other way.
Tedstor t1_iy6075t wrote
When they objective is to shake down a mark, you dont want to bleed them dry on the first go. You take a little here, and a little there. That way you can shake them down for years and years.
The Euros dont have any meaningful tech companies of their own. So they can shake ours down without much risk of retaliation.
But yeah. Like a mafia shakedown, these fines are just a cost of doing business. If the EU were actually trying to promote good policy, they'd fine the shit out of these companies, rather than take their lollipop money.
skydiver19 t1_iy6gghk wrote
Scraping data isn’t illegal, Google do it!
This issue here is Facebook failing to prevent stupid features from being abused despite multiple warnings and then not taking it serious
chacmool1697 t1_iy6nk1v wrote
In addition, I too also wonder that as well.
5kM6v2FMKfN8WU6 t1_iy6oj2v wrote
-
it isn't illegal, altho depends on jurisdiction and data, but gl finding who is scraping your site.
-
It's not a "feature", someone is literally scraping data from public profiles. It's not permissible by any of their products lol. They DO shit about this already - https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/03/meta-settles-lawsuit-for-significant-sum-against-businesses-scraping-facebook-and-instagram-data/
BroodwarGamer t1_iy6pzcm wrote
Who gets the money?
dormor t1_iy6vyh8 wrote
E.g. some communities are still only there. No alternative for a closed, members-only group environment
alcoholisthedevil t1_iy6zy9m wrote
Who gets the money?
Outlulz t1_iy71rmz wrote
Really? Because you probably use Alphabet’s most popular platforms Google and YouTube daily.
tissotti t1_iy72h10 wrote
At least EU is doing something. Data privacy laws are a joke in US.
TheCosmicJester t1_iy787nh wrote
Meta’s 2021 revenue was $117.929 billion. Proportionally speaking, this is like a US household that makes the median household income of about $70,000 getting fined $165.
shoobiedoobie t1_iy7jerf wrote
Not exactly, because their profit is a lot lower than that. Didn’t try hard to look for the yearly financials but taking a quick look in Q4 2021 they had 27b revenue and 22b expenses, which makes the expense to revenue ratio a lot higher than your tax rate at 70k.
That being said, they also held 40 fuckin billion in cash & cash equivalents. So yep, a drop in the fucking ocean.
skydiver19 t1_iy7ofya wrote
Isn’t the fine in relation to the 500m data leak which had phone numbers? If so this was a result of a couple of features where you could generate all the permutations of mobile phone numbers and then pump them though they website leveraging a feature to return the user id thus linking the phone to the user Id
5kM6v2FMKfN8WU6 t1_iy8w4f6 wrote
Not this one specifically, that one is due to not telling people their profiles would be public if they switched to creator mode or w/e it is
gapchuboy t1_iy3fpe2 wrote
So peanuts from meta, right? They are burning more than that themselves in zucks toy VR weekly.