Hacker News Reader

Comment by vmfunction | Hacker News Reader

1.1% seems like slap on the wrist or cost of doing shady business. 20% would be more appropriate, then again this seems like political discussion between US and EU.

View on HN

Reminder that this is revenue, not profit AND it is a fine from the EU so really only EU revenue should be counted when discussing how hard this hits Meta.

> a fine from the EU so really only EU revenue should be counted

You can't really fully seperaten EU revenue. I as a European write very intelligent and relevant posts on Facebook, thus people from other regions go there to read them. (well, I don't post anything on Facebook these days, but the point stands)

Meta revenue is from showing an ad. "Is the ad shown in the EU?" seems like a pretty clear line. IFRS rules already require tracking the action that recognizes revenue so seems hard to play games with it.

This implies that Meta doesn't make money outside of EU by exfiltrating EU users' data.

If Meta made zero money in EU whilst still offering a service to EU users, and still exfiltrating their data, should the fine be zero?

Even if the calculations for how to attribute income from different places would be difficult to decide upon precisely, and doubly so if the calculations are used to determine a penalty fine thanks to the possibility of being gamed, it can probably be guessed at without too much error in cases where Goodhart's Law doesn't bite.

How does anyone make money with EU data outside the EU? Seems like the value of that data is trivial anywhere else.

It should hit the global revenue. Otherwise they could play even more regionally with the rules, and fines are just a cost of doing the business.

Yes the fine should be based on global revenue, but when discussing if this fine actually hurts Meta, you should try to estimate the EU revenue, because it is about if it Meta cares about the fine. If it is a significant part of EU revenue then Meta should want to comply or leave the EU. If it is not then Meta doesn't care.

The fines can be up to 4% of global yearly turnover. I think they don't go for the full amount immediately, because you always want to have room to increase the penalty if the don't comply after this fine.

Agree.

A few years ago I was on around AUD90,000 and driving my wife's car which to me she had failed to register.

I got a AUD990 fine.

So I equate this fine to Meta getting busted for driving an unregistered car.

Not even close to a drink driving charge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com