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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

#31

Post by cosmodisk »

ceejayoz wrote: post #18
Gibbon1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is why some countries do income-based fines. Get a speeding ticket in some Scandinavian countries and you may be on the hook for six figures if you’re rich.

I used to live in Stockholm. Every now and then,on our way to the water, we used cross Östermalm-a pretty expensive area. One day,we noticed Mercedes SLS outside an apartment block. The guy must have been one of the earliest adopters,as it was only released for sales a few weeks earlier. After seeing the car for some time,one day it was gone.Oh,well,maybe the owner moved somewhere else or he sold it,etc.Turns out,this happened instead: www.motor1.com/news/23266/1-million-speeding-fine-in-switzerland-for-swedish-sls-owner/amp/

And the Swiss apparently keep your car until you fork out the fine..

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

#32

Post by tsimionescu »

markdown wrote: post #22
dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a vast difference between claiming some public figure is not a human being and a reasoned belief that the same person should be held criminally accountable for the actions of the corporation they control. One is a facile attack, the other is an interesting legal opinion.

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

#33

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

greenyoda wrote: post #9
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 .

The judge did threaten Facebook with harsher treatment if they ever ended up in his court again. From the end of the court decision: > The Court ends by noting that under the Stipulated Order it retains jurisdiction over this matter, including to enforce its terms. See Stipulated Order at 5. In the event that the parties return to this Court because the United States alleges—once again—that Facebook has reneged on it…

They'll just use that as proof the judge is biased and ask him to recuse.

Honestly, if I had another life, I would become the tech-savvy judge. Give Facebook a 300% revenue fine.

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

#34

Post by jacquesm »

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…

Corporate charters can be revoked. It doesn't happen because of the jobs factor but in theory it can be.

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

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> 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?

We do, it's called charter revocation. It's basically never done any more because even though the corporate form is a privilege granted by the public, it's become essentially an unconditional gift.

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

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
twomoretime wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Corporate charters can be revoked. It doesn't happen because of the jobs factor but in theory it can be.

We punish corporations in ways which adversely impact jobs all the time, even though we don't do charter revocation.

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

#37

Post by tsimionescu »

It's interesting that the site presenting this story has, by their own declaration, 382 different marketing-related cookies, which you are required to accept with no alternatives if you want to browse the site.

I'm not trying to say that they are not entitled to report on FB's privacy violations or something, they are reporters and it is very good that they are doing so.

It's just amazing to what extent journalism sites are trying to monetize. Old newspapers could only dream of the kind of advertising revenue that sites like this probably have.

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

#38

Post by perl4ever »

wnoise wrote: post #10
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…

Piercing the corporate veil is a different thing, connecting the corporation to its owners (e.g. stockholders for public corporations, or the conglomerate for subsidiaries.)

Who are the owners of big public corporations?

If you have an IRA, maybe you're an owner of Facebook as part of an index fund.

But do you really own the fund? Or does the broker/bank own it for you?

Does the index fund manager own the stock, such as Vanguard or Blackrock? Or is it really owned by The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation for the fund?

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

#39

Post by jacquesm »

dragonwriter wrote: post #36
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate charters can be revoked. It doesn't happen because of the jobs factor but in theory it can be.

We punish corporations in ways which adversely impact jobs all the time, even though we don't do charter revocation.

True, but once you start applying that at the level of Facebook the jobs factor starts to really add weight.

Personally I'd much prefer executives to become automatically liable for wrongdoing by their companies.

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

#40

Post by takeda »

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

Those things affect most people, it's just that poor people don't have any reputation to worry about, and won't afford the fees.

Rich people can also be punished by fees if they got them as much as the middle class (i.e. they need to be based on net worth), prison time will affect everyone.

The biggest issue is that rich can use their money and influence to escape justice, I suppose maybe it means that reputation is the only thing left to control the rich, but that hardly helps, there are many rich people with horrible reputation that still do very well, one even got the highest office in the land.

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