I am reasonably certain that they earned more than $1B by using this targeting information... Their ad network is quite small as just $28 billion annually, but it seems unlikely that purchase history wouldnt uplift value more than 4%.
So the poster is saying that they believe it was worth it for Amazon to break the law and pay an $888 million fine.
People in boardrooms dont entertain reasoning in good conscience because conscience doesn't come into it - just "Does this make us more money?"
Break the law once, shame on you - pay a fine. Break it twice, well, we might rewrite the law so the fine is enough to actually deter you. Break it three times and shame on us for letting you trade at all.
Amazon's ad business has extraordinary margins and is growing fast. They knew they could afford speed bumps between the starting block and where they plan to end up (one of the world's largest ad networks, reliably printing $30 billion per year in operating income).
This is what this subthread is talking about
>But, of course, the fine isn't a price point for unlawful behaviour but a penalty levied in judgement of the fact that the company violated the social contract. Seeing fines simply as a business cost would be a serious distortion of the way society should function. Could people in boardrooms actually entertain that kind of reasoning in good conscience? I really hope not.
>>People in boardrooms dont entertain reasoning in good conscience because conscience doesn't come into it - just "Does this make us more money?"
>>>Boardroom greed might follow a logical rational but this behaviour isn't reasonable in the long run. Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the system itself.
They're talking about societal good.
Long term view is something like 1,000 years TO START. A 20-50 year viewpoint is a baby.
We already see that boards don't care about the long run in the US. Companies chase short term gains at the expense of everything else all the time.
> Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the system itself.
This is true but it doesn't matter if the people running things are short sighted and selfish.
IMO the dismay at this idea is coming from those who consider law as part of morality, in which case, it may be immoral to even develop a calculus for ignoring morality when the material returns are good enough.
The fine is based on last annual turnover, not profit and certainly not future profit. Even if Amazon were taking a loss, they still would be fined this amount.
But to answer your question, consumers can be harmed through loss of choice, as Amazon forces out other businesses.
I'd also caution against focusing exclusively on harm to consumers. The harm to businesses is just as real, and something governments are justified in trying to prevent. Their citizens, business-owner and consumer alike, will not thrive in an environment where a handful of companies dominate, crushing or absorbing any competitors through underhanded means. Businesses and consumers do not live in separate worlds.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28007958
Frankly that argument doesn’t really make sense. If I ran a car stealing gang and didn’t turn a profit (say due to costs related to my underlines), then my punishment wouldn’t just go away because I made no profits. The punishment would be related to the total value of the cars that were stolen.
A similar line of reasoning here would show that Amazons profits are irrelevant. It does’t matter if they have zero profits today due to magic accounting or due to future strategy or due to monopoly building or anything else because the profits don’t matter at all.
Of course you’re correct that if there’s not damage caused by Amazon (equivalently that Amazon did nothing illegal), then they wouldn’t have to pay any fines, but in that case you’re changing the subject and arguing something than than your original point. The EU however seems to believe the actions to have been illegal which makes profit irrelevant to the discussion.
I don't read French and so haven't read the complaint, but I am a data lawyer, so I can make a fair guess. The harm alleged to have been suffered is likely to be that persons have been tracked and profiled without their consent, in breach of their legal right not to be, and so have suffered an unwarranted intrusion into their private life.
To those from countries whose legal systems treat privacy as a consumer or constitutional right, this may seem anti-intuitive. Even within the EU, there is plenty of controversy around some of the legal points at issue in these types of cases/complaints. Regulators are not always immune from doctrinal thinking.
It will be interesting to read the full findings of this specific regulator when available.