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Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

lawandcrime.com

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Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#21

Post by close04 »

mattmanser wrote: post #16
nimbius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the best two things that can happen in my opinion (based on a book called 'the chickenshit club') are 0. make corporations admit wrongdoing. almsot every one of them that gets out of a protracted settlement like this without having to own any responsibility at the corporate level for this. They can take the fine. They cannot take the risk to their business and loss of reputation in the market. 1. Stop offering settle…

The reason you don't have crazy nonsense like this is that it would be a field-day for political persecution. Prefect for corruption. A politician with clout doesn't like what some CEO said, or that he bankrolled your opponent? Destroy their business by setting the prosecutors on them, jail their CEO, destroy their business by seizing the cashflow, and then 2 years down the line, charges dropped. Whoops.

Another reason you don't have this is that if an executive knew they become personally responsible for such wrongdoing they would refuse the position. Today the bar is pretty high to punish the executive personally.

And if they do take the job they would be hyper-cautious. This is not conducive to high profit. So companies via lobbyists make sure legislation is passed "as it should". The balance of power is incredibly tilted in the favor of corporations, and some governments really did their best to maintain this status-quo.

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#22

Post by markdown »

dang wrote: post #3
itsajoke wrote: post #2

A prerequisite of having scruples is being human. The jury is still out on whether Mark Zuckerberg qualifies.

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Maybe you don't feel you owe a person better, but you owe this community better if you're posting to it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The odd thing about your comment is that most of the other comments in this thread (at the time I'm typing this) call for personally holding Facebook office-bearers to account, the implication being that Zuckerberg is a criminal who should be thrown in jail.

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#23

Post by will4274 »

antjanus wrote: post #5

it's frustrating. 5 billion for a fine over the course of 8 years of operation? They made $17 billion this quarter .

I disagree in part. The articles notes:

> The settlement also obligates Facebook to pay $5 billion in civil penalties; that penalty is significantly larger than the next-closest penalty the FTC has ever won–which topped out at $22.5 million.

With $5 billion, I believe we're within a factor of ten of the right fine, which isn't something I always believe about these settlements. Compared to e.g. Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, resulting in a fine of $27 thousand - $5 billion is at least a line on the spreadsheet.

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#24

Post by perl4ever »

mattmanser wrote: post #16
nimbius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the best two things that can happen in my opinion (based on a book called 'the chickenshit club') are 0. make corporations admit wrongdoing. almsot every one of them that gets out of a protracted settlement like this without having to own any responsibility at the corporate level for this. They can take the fine. They cannot take the risk to their business and loss of reputation in the market. 1. Stop offering settle…

The reason you don't have crazy nonsense like this is that it would be a field-day for political persecution. Prefect for corruption. A politician with clout doesn't like what some CEO said, or that he bankrolled your opponent? Destroy their business by setting the prosecutors on them, jail their CEO, destroy their business by seizing the cashflow, and then 2 years down the line, charges dropped. Whoops.

Gee, what country does that sound like? It just occurred to me, seriously.

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#25

Post by elliekelly »

tsherr wrote: post #6

If you want corporations like Facebook to care about breaking the law, you need start handing out jail time for the CEOs. Fining a significant percentage of revenue might work, but they'd probably cook the books.

Why jail time? Hit them where it hurts: their company stock. Corporate malfeasance should (in part) be punished by clawing back some portion of executive stock compensation FBO the victims and/or the government. Some portion of their compensation was “earned” by decisions that violated the law and directly harmed others. Take it away.

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#26

Post by tsimionescu »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #12
tsherr wrote: post #6

If you want corporations like Facebook to care about breaking the law, you need start handing out jail time for the CEOs. Fining a significant percentage of revenue might work, but they'd probably cook the books.

Reminds me years ago I stumbled on an essay by Richard Posner ex Chief Justice of the 7th Circuit. In it he discussed his belief that. a) The only way to keep poor people in line is the threat of prison. b) Middle class people can be kept in line by the threat of fines. c) However the wealthy are kept in line by the threat of losing their good reputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Posner

That seems like utter nonsense. The threat of jail is much more daunting for middle-class people than poor people, and fines are often the other way around. However, the rich can afford fines and can generally buy their way, more or less legally, from jail sentences, so they don't see it as a realistic probability for themselves. This would be the only reason that the rich can't usually be kept in line by the threat of jail.

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#27

Post by [deleted] »

bitcharmer wrote: post #20
mattmanser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you don't have crazy nonsense like this is that it would be a field-day for political persecution. Prefect for corruption. A politician with clout doesn't like what some CEO said, or that he bankrolled your opponent? Destroy their business by setting the prosecutors on them, jail their CEO, destroy their business by seizing the cashflow, and then 2 years down the line, charges dropped. Whoops.

So if making people responsible for what their companies do is, as you put it "crazy nonsense", what would you suggest instead?

[deleted]

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#28

Post by newen »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #12
tsherr wrote: post #6

If you want corporations like Facebook to care about breaking the law, you need start handing out jail time for the CEOs. Fining a significant percentage of revenue might work, but they'd probably cook the books.

Reminds me years ago I stumbled on an essay by Richard Posner ex Chief Justice of the 7th Circuit. In it he discussed his belief that. a) The only way to keep poor people in line is the threat of prison. b) Middle class people can be kept in line by the threat of fines. c) However the wealthy are kept in line by the threat of losing their good reputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Posner

I mean..everyone can be kept in line with a).

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#29

Post by thewebcount »

twomoretime wrote: post #8
droffel wrote: post #4

In the absense of capital punishment for corporations, fines can and will be seen as merely the cost of doing business. It feels like the only way to address this is by holding the decision makers (executives) responsible, but that would require piercing the corporate veil[1], which has disappointingly low precedent in the US [1]Edit: piercing the veil refers to holding shareholders responsible, which is a different…

>In the absense of capital punishment for corporations That's an interesting analogy that I've never considered, given we treat corporations as personlike entities. Why don't we have a capital punishment equivalent? Perhaps our rules regarding social harm are too loose. But I'm not sure that I would trust a government, especially our government, to make and enforce the right rules. In any case our legislation despera…

It does exist. The state can cause an involuntary dissolution of your corporation [0] if circumstances dictate. That would include such things as not paying your corporate taxes.

[0] https://www.upcounsel.com/involuntary-dissolution

Re: Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations

#30

Post by perl4ever »

twomoretime wrote: post #8
droffel wrote: post #4

In the absense of capital punishment for corporations, fines can and will be seen as merely the cost of doing business. It feels like the only way to address this is by holding the decision makers (executives) responsible, but that would require piercing the corporate veil[1], which has disappointingly low precedent in the US [1]Edit: piercing the veil refers to holding shareholders responsible, which is a different…

>In the absense of capital punishment for corporations That's an interesting analogy that I've never considered, given we treat corporations as personlike entities. Why don't we have a capital punishment equivalent? Perhaps our rules regarding social harm are too loose. But I'm not sure that I would trust a government, especially our government, to make and enforce the right rules. In any case our legislation despera…

"Why don't we"

Way too many people ask "why don't we" before figuring out what they are talking about.

Arthur Andersen got the death penalty. If you point that out, people will argue with you, no the death penalty would be something different.

It doesn't matter what you think a word or phrase means, you should have a good idea of what you mean by it before advocating it.

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