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Comment by JCWasmx86 | Hacker News Reader

This fine is ridiculously small, it simply won't hurt these companies.

In Europe we have 28 nations that can fine Meta/Alphabet/etc individually. They won't shut down due to fines but 28*100M starts hurting

In Europe we have 28 nations that could fine these companies since 2018 when the GDPR went into effect. The question is which ones will actually bother to fine them, and the answer is "not many" given the evidence available so far.

Look again at the nature of the offence - it's not about consentless tracking (any tracking here, using cookies, was opt in). Plus, users that were concerned enough could quite easily refuse; they just couldn't do it with a single click. How much do you think they actually suffered? How big of a fine do you think something like this actually deserves (given we're just talking about French users here, not EU or global)?

Given Google made 17 Billion dollar in Q1 2021 [0] in Europe/Africa/Middle East, I would say that around 2 Billion dollar would be more appropriate.

Facebook made 6.5 Billion dollar in Q1 2021 [1] in Europe, so maybe around 1-1.5 Billion dollar.

[0] https://businessquant.com/google-revenue-by-region (Didn't find a better source or one that lists the revenue for France only)

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/223279/facebooks-quarter...

Edit: I tested the banners:

Facebook: "More Options" -> "Allow only essential cookies" (1 click more than necessary)

Google: "Anpassen" -> Switch off "Suchanpassung" -> Switch off "Youtube-Verlauf" -> Switch off "Personalisierte Werbung" -> "Bestätigen" and then there are 3 seconds of delay with progress bar. (4 clicks more than necessary + delay). This delay does not occur, if I simply press "Accept all"

2 billion dollars just in respect of French users having to wait a few seconds and do a few clicks?

Could we not be disingenuous? If the delay was meaningless, it wouldn't exist. There is a clear intention by these companies to bore or confuse people into signing their rights away. Consider how many lawyers are on payroll or retention at these companies who are aware of the requirements of the law, then consider that G/FB made a cynical, calculated decision to ignore it.

> There is a clear intention by these companies to bore or confuse people into signing their rights away

These aren’t “rights”. There’s no confusion either. And people aren’t entitled to getting a service for free so they lost nothing.

> Consider how many lawyers are on payroll or retention at these companies who are aware of the requirements of the law, then consider that G/FB made a cynical, calculated decision to ignore it.

Irrelevant

They literally are rights, they're enshrined in law

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