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Meta could get slapped with a massive fine for violating the EU's Digital Markets Act
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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Define "massive." Because if it doesn't substantially cut into their profits then it's not a fine but just the cost of doing business.
"In case a gatekeeper does not comply with the obligations laid out in the DMA, the Commission can impose fines up to 10% of the company's total worldwide turnover, which can go up to 20% in case of repeated infringement."
The way fines should be constructed. As a percentage of something's worth.
Meta's global revenue last year was $134 billion. It would have to be a historic fine to even make a dent. I'm not hopeful. This will be another "cost of doing business" situation.
A $13 billion fine does not look like a "cost of doing business" scenario to me.
Imagine you making $100K last year doing some shady business. You got caught and convicted in federal court, your punishment is $10K fine, and that's it. You're free to change your tactics and make sure you don't get caught next time.
It's a little bit stink, but it's the best you could asked for.
13 billions to Meta may not be a slap on the wrist, but more like 5 spanks and 15 minutes timeout.
Imagine your "shady stuff" is not putting money into the parking meter because you are lazy. You get hit with a 10k fine. You then fix that and start putting money into the parking meter. Because ultimately it cost you less to fix it, than pay the fine. That's the language corporations understand.
They haven't gotten that fine yet and $13 billion out of $134 billion is absolutely a "cost of doing business" fine. If they still make massive profits at the end of the year, they haven't been hurt.
Corporations have to be punished and they rarely are.
No, a million is cost of doing business. Once you get into single digit percentage fines, you're hurting them. Or do you expect shareholders to say, "ah, that's fine, that's just the EU, we're gonna hold Meta stock because we like them"?
Another thing to consider is that it's also about how many of those fines can the company absorb. Fine them a million? They can take a thousand of those before it even starts making a dent. But how many of the 1% fines can they take? 5? 10? 20?
Why not make the fine 100%?
Why would you want that? Do you seriously want to bankrupt a company for a single mistake? Not sure that's the world I want to live in. Once this cat's out of the bag, it's hard to put back.
I agree, they haven’t got that fine, never mind actually paid it. But it would be about a third of their profits, not exactly negligible, and it could double for repeated offences.
Oh you'll see. It'll be super massive. It'll be amazingly punishing!
It'll be like... 0.2% of their gross.
Then it'll spend years in legal battles to become 0.05%.
Have you seen the kind of fines the EU hands out? They're nothing to sneeze at