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Comment by cracker_jacks | Hacker News Reader

> Twitter estimates the "range of probable loss" it faces in the probe is between $150 million and $250 million

That's close to 10% of Twitter's annual revenue. How do the likes of Google and Facebook get away with fines <1% of annual revenue? This seems disproportionate. I am not taking a position on whether it should be higher or lower, just that it appears unbalanced.

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$150 - 250 MM is more like 4-7 % of revenue than 10% based on their 2019 figure.

Also note that they did this for seven years.

It is really hard to grasp how pathetic the modern web is, where this is commonplace.

What does this have to do with "the modern web"?

The weakness here is both the legal system that allowed it and the regulatory system that failed to police it for years.

Because the modern web is based entirely around invading the privacy of every user as much as possible in order to sell their private details to advertisers. If Twitter's money came from users in the form of subscriptions or purchases, rather than from advertisers in the form of paid, targeted ads, this would be guarded information, rather than shared.

Part of the difference is that Twitter has much lower revenue per user than the other two. If you frame the fine as "$X per user impacted" rather than as "y% of your revenue" then it seems more proportional.

Hard to say without getting into specifics. Which specific thing has FB/Google done that deserves a 5% of revenue fine?

> How do the likes of Google and Facebook get away with fines <1% of annual revenue? This seems disproportionate

Google and Facebook spend more on lobbying.

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