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Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

1 month of revenue is how many months of profit?

That misses the point: it's effectively a (cheap) speeding ticket for bad behavior over the life of the company. It would be a bargain at twice the price from their point of view.

Yea, and it might be that this slap on the wrists prevents any real punishment from ever being dealt out - that's what pisses me off, whenever the government goes into a non-prosecution agreement or a fine without admittance of wrong doing... it's actually lowering the potential liabilities outstanding of the company unjustly.

1 month of pay is a lot more than a speeding ticket.

Finland, Switzerland, and the UK are the first three places that pop into my mind where speeding tickets are calculated based on the income of the offender.

You'd have to be caught going way above the limit to be fined above 1 month of pay, but it's possible.

I think if you were talking about such a large speeding ticket, you wouldn’t use a speeding ticket as a metaphor for a small fine...

Even worse, in this model they can effectively just build in the cost of the fines in the business model. It's just a cost of doing business at this point.

I'm sorry, but this shit isn't going to end until the U.S. actually punishes white collar crime. Fines _do not_ work.

According to YCharts, Facebook's 2018 revenue was $55.8 BN and their profit was $22.1 BN, so 1 month of revenue is 2.5 months of profit.

They are fairly high margin relative to most industries, so probably less than 2 months of profit would be my guess.

If only there was a way to find out how much profit a public company makes, instead of going three-deep in a threat with “would be my guess” numbers...

FWIW, FB quarterly profits Q1, Q2, and Q3 2018 were 5.1, 5.1, and 6.9 billion, respectively: https://www.statista.com/statistics/223289/facebooks-quarter...

There’s a place for estimates with reasoning. My intention was not to give the exact answer, which is often no that’s needed, but to help (in some small way) someone who doesn’t know how to get there build the reasoning that might get them enough of an answer.

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