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Comment by anpe | Hacker News Reader

Also to add, this fine is concerned with the EU. I'm not sure why we care how much money Meta makes in other regions. EU accounts for about 25% of their revenue [1]. So in terms of yearly net income it then gets closer to about 15%. Again, the job of EU is to regulate businesses in the EU and not the rest of the world.

[1] https://businessquant.com/facebook-revenue-by-region

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Sounds to me like a clever EU work-around to force Meta to pay taxes over its EU revenue :p

This "fine" just feels like "cost of doing business in the EU" to me...

They broke a law that violates basic human rights. Privacy is important to EU citizens, and unlike the US they largely enjoy that right thanks to laws which are enforced.

Nothing to do with taxes.

A lot of EU countries are also in "big eyes" esque spying agreements. The occasional story of a privacy law being enforced doesn't change that

Facebook is not the government so even if what you say is true, it's really off-topic. Being protected from businesses violating your privacy is a good thing.

The reason why Facebook transferring data to the US is illegal in the EU is because its spy agencies and law enforcement can force them to turn over data.

It's not off topic at all.

Can EU governments force companies to turn over data? If not, then you are talking about what EU governments do secretly. That's a different topic.

And the United States can't? Facebook is part of PRISM, and they are incorporated in America. They are arguably in a more compromised state when operating domestically than abroad.

That's not the argument I would go with, but you could. I would argue that the EU has more oversight into its spy agencies and can reign them in if wrongdoing comes to light, whereas they have little to no control over those in the US.

It's not off topic. You said:

> unlike the US they largely enjoy that right thanks to laws which are enforced

This is categorically not true.

This isn't about protecting users from spying. This is about managing user data and privacy in accordance with the laws that privately-owned businesses must abide by. You can claim that it's a double-standard, but it's still wrongdoing and needed to be sorted out either way.

Funnily enough, country that is biggest on that recently left EU...

But not because the EU didn't like their spying.

> Nothing to do with taxes.

If companies view it as cost of doing business, it's akin to a tax and the rights you hold dear are not respected

That's true but the evidence points to companies changing policy to avoid increasing fines and the risk of being banned entirely.

So how do you have “privacy” when the entire purpose of social media is to share your likes, dislikes, social graph, etc. worldwide?

The data that Facebook collects about people goes far beyond what is explicitly shared and visible in their profile. E.g. which sites they visit (and when) with Facebook widgets on them, on-site browsing habits, private conversations, their phone contacts, location data, etc.

I imagine that a number of features are built on top of these. I remember that you could easily see what friends where nearby you when you were traveling (I ran into a friend who was visiting Milan at the same time as me a few years back!) but the feature doesn't exist anymore. I'm wondering if it's because of regulations that they had to cut down on these features.

Facebook posts can be made for only friends to see. Other social media has similar controls.

Facebook also has private messaging.

And when those private messages get sent to someone in the US or those friends are in the US, what do you think is going to happen with the data?

You're moving the goal posts. Your claim was that all posts are globally public. That's wrong.

But to play along, what happens to the data depends on where it is stored. If the data center is in the US then the government can get a court order to seize that data. Which is not the same as in some other countries, is it?

well, what would happen is facebook getting 1.3B fine

So now the EU is saying that Facebook shouldn’t allow people in the EU to talk to people in the US?

That's not what the EU said. You can read the publicly available ruling. Or any of the hundreds of articles summarizing the ruling.

> Privacy is important to EU citizens

The people on the ground didn't do anything with this

That's entirely untrue. Countries in the EU had strong privacy laws before the EU existed. And before the internet existed. Mostly around phone companies, but not only. Having lived in a few countries in the EU I can also anecdotely say that privacy laws are generally liked.

GDPR laws are so popular that 17 countries outside the EU already have similar laws.

Nah, GDPR is great.

For example now random security camera operator can't just take some scenes and post it on youtube, as that would violate GDPR in several ways and few companies paid tens to hundreds of thousands in fines for that.

It also cut sooo much bullshit when it comes to PII management. Because there is actual teeth behind it very little companies will try the old trick of "oh you wrote email to us ? Let's just send marketing stuff on that", as that would require separate consent.

Well, companies are known for organising their affairs to avoid taxes. I suppose they can organise their affairs to avoid fines as well.

I am SO glad I was not taking a sip of my very hot coffee when I read this.

They got 5 months to fix the issues. So after 5 months they can collect a bigger fine ... and then 5 months later again, with three increasing charges within 12 months it's more notable.

Ok, realistically it's unlikely to happen exactly that way, ...

Fortunately, we can count on FB to move fast and break this hazard much faster than that.

Sometimes I wonder why there are so many people advocating three strike and out laws, but never against corporations. Would be interesting if the third fine would be so large that shareholders are wiped out and debt holders are left with scraps.

The GDPR allows for fines based on global revenue to prevent companies playing games with where there income is "technically" generated.

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