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Comment by jastanton | Hacker News Reader

This seems more like a slap on the wrist than anything. Especially since they were charging guests up to $1,000 per device to connect to the internet. Wow. Edit: That's the $/connection point not $/guest. That's a bit more reasonable then.

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I don't think it's a slap on the wrist at all. The $600k is probably not a big deal, but now they will have to figure out a process for verifying and reporting compliance across all their US properties. That's likely going to cost a hell of a lot more than the actual fine.

Honestly, I figure that just the initial analysis of what they need to do will cost them that much before they actually start hiring personnel and putting the preventive actions in place.

Then factor in all the bad press they will get from this and the final bill will be well into the millions.

Just to be clear, it was $250 to $1,000 per hotspot/AP that they were charging, not per device. (That is, if your convention needs 3 hotspots, presumably you would pay $750 to $3,000, no matter how many people connected.)

Considering a conservative estimate of $1000/week for a single year across a dozen hotels is already over $600k, this fine is particularly really meaningless.

Others have stated that it was only one Marriott location. In that case, $600k would hurt quite a bit.

Again, this is not the type of charge for guest-room wifi. This is the type of charge for convention/conference center wifi, where an event wants to do something like live streaming. Typically the most cost-effective option is for the event to bring its own gear with a high-speed cellular connection; the conference/convention facilities at this Marriott were actively jamming such gear to force use of the Marriott's own connectivity at high prices.

They may of made more than that since they were charging $250-1000 per device at a convention center

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