I'm in two minds with these kinds of fines (maybe not super relevant for this specific fine).
1. Do these big megacorps just not care about rules, and they look at fines as a cost of doing business while the steam roll through industries.
2. Have lawmakers completely failed for the past decades to effectively referee tech, and so instead of having sane regulation and clear rules everything has to get decided in courts with fines.
Probably both are true, and the real losers are small businesses trying to get started.
Fines should be a deterrent and not just cost of business. It seems we have reached a point where large companies can do shady stuff, make lots of money, pay a fraction of that as fine and nothing else happens. So they will keep doing it.
Not to mention that most companies seem to get off with nothing more than a slap-on-the-wrist type fine, if at all. It seems as if it's just become a cost of doing business.
Fines are only punishments for poor people (or companies, in this case).
Of course, in most rulings it's a fine in addition to the company changing their ways; it's not like the fine means they can keep doing that which they were fined for.
We keep reading about big tech firms being fined for regulation violations but it seems like they just treat it as a cost of doing business and keep doing whatever it they want. Perhaps it's time to start significantly raising those fines until real change is seen.
That amount is an embarrassing joke. What's going on that's causing these appallingly low penalties for companies? Is it just that the legislation was written without these kinds of megacorps in mind? Is it trepidation on the part of regulators? Seriously, what is going on here?
From everything I've seen the tech nerd world basically sees fines as existing on one of two extremes, either they're a cost of doing business or they're company destroying. The idea that there can be fines or penalty schemes of any other effect is largely ignored. Since 150k is pretty small, everyone is of course advocating for a 150 million fine because that's the only other kind of fine that exists in their minds.
It's more like corporations know that regulators can't or don't assign meaningful fines. Look at Facebook and their recent $5 billion fine. That's a "cost of doing business" to them.
The possibility of fines, even large ones, is ultimately just considered a cost of doing business. If you really want to stop this sort of behavior we'll need a streamlined process for piercing the veil and criminally prosecuting both executives and engineers, with very serious (but fully deserved) setencing guidelines.
Fine for big corp are just cost of doing business. All the big corp have some money stashed away for that purpose. It is all about working out with the AG on what the fine will be.
1. Do these big megacorps just not care about rules, and they look at fines as a cost of doing business while the steam roll through industries.
2. Have lawmakers completely failed for the past decades to effectively referee tech, and so instead of having sane regulation and clear rules everything has to get decided in courts with fines.
Probably both are true, and the real losers are small businesses trying to get started.
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