Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

Why not just increase the percentage so it's no longer profitable to break laws?

If say Meta was found to violate users privacy and illegally gained a 5% extra net revenue because of it, fine them 10x of what they gained, so 50% of the revenue.

I'm fairly sure they'd start moving fast without breaking things if that was the case.

You're talking about situations where people are borrowing shares and selling them, with the hope of buying the share back later to pay back the borrowed share. Obviously that's a bad scene if you borrow / sell the share and then it goes from $20 to $20,000,000,000.... Your liability in these scenarios is infinite, but it is also part of the trading system to manage those exploding liabilities.

If you buy a property, and it turns out that property is a former toxic waste dump, you own that liability from that asset. What you thought would make a wonderful daycare is now going to cost you millions to remediate.

If you buy into a partnership, and one of the other partners does a silly thing and now the partnership owes someone millions, you're on the hook for that.

If you buy a stock, your liability is the money you've invested in the stock, which is why stocks are such a wonderful innovation (as seen from a 1400's perspective where debts are paid back by all owners).

Many corporate executives have gone to prison for crimes they committed while working.

> Corporations can influence laws in ways that I can't. I can't even talk to a politician.

You can talk to a politician if you bother to call or email their office. Stop being obtuse.

> Corporations have far better access to government contracts and the tender process than regular citizens. There is subtle, but harmful corruption constantly taking place behind the scenes.

You want individuals to bid directly for government contracts?

> Not only that, but the people who work for corporations are, to some extent, shielded from the crimes that they commit on behalf of corporations as it limits their liability by design. It absorbs and neutralizes liability. Nobody ends up taking responsibility. The crimes keep getting more frequent; corporations keep finding people who are more and more desperate and willing to commit crimes on their behalf.

Opinion, not fact. Maybe you're complaining they should be held more accountable, which is valid. But working under a corporation can't prevent anything if the DOJ decides to go after the individual perpetrator.

Thanks for falling for the author's clickbait though..

> As of seven days and three hours into 2024, they had already earned enough revenue to pay it all off.

revenue is not the same as profit. this is basic stuff.

from the same article:

> Still, revenue is a more accurate depiction of a company’s size and profitability.

it seems like this is rookie hour.

then we look at the author's previous posts:

https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-ipef With new trade deal, Big Tech wants to be above the law

https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-bigger-fines Why we need bigger fines for Big Tech

got it. there is an axe to grind.

It makes no sense that breaking the law gives milder consequences just as long as your crime is transnational and very extensive in scope.