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Comment by throw5555788o | Hacker News Reader

Or simply not complying. After all what can Norway do about it? Lol

It reminds them of the Canada govt trying to make FB pay for news. Ehh... NOPE.

Lol indeed: throw their execs in jail when they transit through a country with which they have an extradition agreement (plenty of precedent for that), freeze or seize their assets, block them at the ISP level (ISPs would have to play ball unless they themselves would want to be come a target).

The idea that some crap company outranks a nation state with millions of citizens is ridiculous.

Also: even though Norway isn't part of the EU (though it is in Schengen) they could bring a case in the EU courts and have Meta's assets in Ireland seized. That would really hurt if the court allowed it.

Trust me, if was a Facebook exec I wouldn't lose ANY sleep over it. Norway has 5 millon people, it doesn't have any leverage and it's largely irrelevant.

Not to disrespect Norway bros, but it's the truth.

I'm not going to trust you. The EU has shown time and again that it is perfectly capable of dealing with asshole companies and Norway, even though it isn't in the EU has enough standing with the Union and the Nordics separately to get them to take this serious.

There is probably a reason that you are not a Facebook exec, and no disrespect to you but you are clueless about how large companies interact with the law. They'll scream, they'll sue, they'll haggle and they will delay but ultimately they fold. The same has already happened to big telco's, many large IT companies, industrial giants etc, FB is no exception.

I love you one causally goes about “can’t they just violate the law”

Fuck around and find out Facebook.

They can freeze their assets. They can basically do everything you can do against a company that doesn't obey the law.

Correct. From what I can read in the decision letter, Metas local Norwegian subsidiary, named "Facebook Norway AS", is being held collectively responsible for "fine of up to NOK 1 000 000 per day of non-compliance on Meta Platforms Ireland Limited and/or Facebook Norway AS" - https://www.datatilsynet.no/contentassets/36ad4a92100943439d...

Facebook Norway AS did, however, only have a revenue of about 6.6 million USD in 2022, with a profit of 3.6 million USD, according to https://www.proff.no/selskap/facebook-norway-as/oslo/reklame... . They have 27 employees. The revenue from Norway are however much bigger and was speculated to be 233 million USD in 2021: https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/A3r1Mz/facebook-bokfoerte-bare-...

FB has datacenters in Denmark and Sweden, countries that are very friendly with Norway and that have plenty of treaties between them, such as the Helsinki Treaty. Piss one off enough and you might find that four countries go after you in sync.

And seizing those DC's is childs play for a nation state, where are they going to take them?

They can block FB in their country.

They don't have to, is the thing. If Facebook can't operate as a business in their country, then they can't collect advertising revenue there, can't run FB marketplace, etc.

Facebook has always had the option to not operate as a business in a country, that they do is because it's profitable to do so.

It's worth noting that not paying fines in one country is a serious enough deal for the entire European Economic Area that it can escalate to that company not being allowed to do any trade in the entire EEC.

And this fine will increase if Facebook dont comply, it's been done before to even bigger targets like Microsoft(back when windows/office was still relevant) so just being big wont save Facebook here.

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