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Comment by ztratar | Hacker News Reader

No $529BN fine would ever actually happen.

That would be considered economic warfare and the US wouldn't allow it.

Why not? Isn't Australia free to not allow Facebook to operate in their country if they don't pay a fine? And if the US prevents them from doing so by retaliation or sanctions, that would actually be closer to warfare.

The US almost certainly would, at least it did most recently when France wanted to put a digital tax: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078574/france-us-digita...

A consumption tax is a pretty good way to tax foreign companies though imo, as long as your domestic market is desirable.

If enough countries start doing that, maybe the balance of power might be different. Especially in the West.

>The US almost certainly would

What happened with China?

I know FB isn't really operating in China. (At least no one I knew in Ningbo had it?) So did we sanction China for that or how did that all work? Because, and I don't know if we did or didn't, but if we didn't sanction China, why sanction Australia? Was that situation different somehow? (Other than just "China's richer").

> And if the US prevents them from doing so by retaliation or sanctions, that would actually be closer to warfare.

So? It's about power, the US has it, Australia doesn't.

Australia can fine them a hefty sum, but nothing that looks like an existential threat to the company.

I mean, what would happen is simply that Facebook would shutdown operations in Australia (Making Facebook Australia declare bankruptcy), pay whatever couple millions is in Facebook Australia's coffers, and the rest of the fine would simply go unpaid. It's not like Australia can fine a foreign company - they can only fine the local branch of the company. There's exactly no way for facebook to pay a fine that's equal to 7 times its annual revenue...

What kind of fine do you think would be realistic? I'd be very interested to see Facebook bullied out of a couple billions, although I do think it would be protected somehow, too many people have their interests tied up in it.

Still, a precedent being set on this sort of scale would be a good thing, right?

OTOH, I'd love to see the mental / rhetorical gymnastics demanded of our politicians to defend tech companies from large fines associated with privacy violations while simultaneously excoriating those same companies over privacy violations.

> while simultaneously excoriating those same companies over privacy violations

Has there been excoriation over this? I've seen lots of hand-wringing over election interference and addiction. But the privacy complaints have yet to find footing in America.

The US Senate had a hearing over it and the FTC fined Facebook $5bn over the same scandal. Arguably that’s a start.

Wouldn't whatever legal entity Facebook has set up in Australia just declare bankruptcy? They can't exactly levy fines at a company that's not in their jurisdiction.

Isn't "economic warfare" a bit of an oxymoron? If it's warfare it involves violence, if it's economic then it involves free trade in the aggregate.

Not necessarily. Not everyone uses the same definition of war. The definition I was told in the military is that it's a political tool used when all other methods have failed. So if placing economic sanctions is a last resort, then economic warfare would make sense.

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