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

proton.me

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

#111

Post by barryrandall »

tokai wrote: post #40

The only way to tackle this is to put leadership in prison. If that is not possible give them the oligarch experience; frozen assets, interpol warrant, etc. It makes no sense that breaking the law gives milder consequences just as long as your crime is transnational and very extensive in scope.

Double the fine every time a business violates the same law. Businesses that treat fines as a "cost of doing business" will quickly see their costs trending toward infinity and will be forced to change or declare bankruptcy.

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

#112

Post by angra_mainyu »

tokai wrote: post #40

The only way to tackle this is to put leadership in prison. If that is not possible give them the oligarch experience; frozen assets, interpol warrant, etc. It makes no sense that breaking the law gives milder consequences just as long as your crime is transnational and very extensive in scope.

> The only way to tackle this is to put leadership in prison.

This is not the kind of democracy I want to live in.

I'd much, much rather see a grassroots movement pushing to once again return to the marketplace of ideas, where for each "category" you have a host of apps competing against each other, not just one or two.

As a society, we should learn to hone the oscillatory nature of the complex system that is a tech niche: a niche forms => many apps populate the space => one app begins dominating => it consumes the rest (e.g: buy outs) => eventually the "one" app is replaced by a new market of apps.

We're failing on the last step and I'd like to get there without using the government's monopoly on violence.

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

#113

Post by hef19898 »

luqtas wrote: post #105
hef19898 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue. Hard to manipulate (and doing so is illegal in itself), easy to measure and the top line is where it hurts. And no, I don't think fines should be high enough to destroy businesses the same way a speeding or parking ticket shouldn't bankrupt people.

violating users privacy and acting as a hostile monopoly is ballparks different than receiving a ticket

The basic idea is the same so.

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

#114

Post by subtra3t »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #99
kmlx wrote: post #38

from the article: > 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 de…

> > 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. And all of "Big Tech" isn't going to run and pay off their 2023 fines this week either. It's an illustration. This is basic stuff.

It's an illustration that encourages straight-up incorrect financial ideas (like revenue = profit). This is basic stuff.

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

#115

Post by pc86 »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #99
kmlx wrote: post #38

from the article: > 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 de…

> > 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. And all of "Big Tech" isn't going to run and pay off their 2023 fines this week either. It's an illustration. This is basic stuff.

I'm sorry but the moment you say "revenue is a more accurate depiction of a company's...profitability [than profit]" you've lost all credibility.

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

#116

Post by anticorporate »

hiq wrote: post #82
anticorporate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you reach a certain level of wealth, fines are no longer consequential. When you can restructure both your corporate and personal assets to span multiple countries with different regulations and poor cooperation, you've effective avoided them.

What about the 4% of the global turnover of a company as mentioned in https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/fines-penalties/ ?

If it were effective, we wouldn't all endure daily GDPR violations. But we do.

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

#117

Post by hermannj314 »

louthy wrote: post #104
kmlx wrote: post #38

from the article: > 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 de…

Profit can be made to be 0 very easily though (a big capital investment, for example). So, it's hard to use that as a barometer of size.

In what situations does a Capex hit the income statement?

I thought only depreciation or amortization would hit profitability.

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

#118

Post by ethbr1 »

dox_shepherd wrote: post #84
ycdxvjp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an endless supply of corporate robots to replace them. Instead there are options: 1. Govt walks in and just nationalizes them ala Japan post world war 2 where Mitsubishi, Sumimoto etc where just turned into puppets over night As in hostile takeover to influence how they use their loot. 2. Govt can then use the SpaceX model to disrupt brick and mortar sectors world wide (cement, steel, ships, planes, energy,…

Yeah but is government really less corrupt than big tech? Its very human to want a hero come save the day but I fear that we'd just be replacing one bad actor with another.

The government as a monolith, probably? The government in specific departments, maybe?

Corporate combinations are profit machines.

Governments are bureaucracy and vote-getting machines.

Pick your monomaniacalism.

But! Bureaucracy does have the benefit of being defined by law. Which... big tech really doesn't.

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

#119

Post by kortilla »

anticorporate wrote: post #63
hef19898 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment people fail to differentiate between revenue and profit, one can safely ignore the rest of the article.

I don't think TFA failed to differentiate revenue and profit, though. I think the point is these companies have enough revenue to pay off the fines, and 358 days to return to profitability for the year, even starting out with an operating loss.

7 days of pure loss on a company with 2% margin is enough to wipe out profitability for a year.

People who use revenue are unqualified to spout any opinions on this stuff because it shows they lack a super basic understanding of how businesses function.

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

#120

Post by nickysielicki »

arp242 wrote: post #72
nickysielicki wrote: post #54

It's so easy to tell when Europe is voting on a post versus the US. Fines against these companies are predominantly rent seeking. You should be extra suspicious when the fines are coming from countries where they don't have offices. FTA: > Big Tech companies can further water down the potential sting of these fines by delaying payment for years(new window). They’ve done this by filing appeals, counter-suing, or simpl…

> You should be extra suspicious when the fines are coming from countries where they don't have offices. They're doing business in these countries, and making a profit from that. Where they do or don't have an office isn't that important: it's about who they're doing business with. And it's really very simple: "obey the law or sod off". If you think that's too much bother then that's completely fair – no hard feeling…

> Where they do or don't have an office isn't that important: it's about who they're doing business with.

It's important because it frames the lawsuit. If the company has a large presence in the country and is employing thousands of high-earning tax payers and leasing expensive offices, then the governments are not likely to bring frivolous fines against the company for no reason. On the other hand, if the company is making money and not paying anything back into their economy, the government has nothing to lose by attempting to extort them.

> And it's really very simple: "obey the law or sod off". If you think that's too much bother then that's completely fair – no hard feelings. Just don't do business then.

It's completely arbitrary in a lot of these cases. India fining Google $161m for smartphone market dominance and demanding specific remedies like not installing Google Chrome, YouTube, and Google Maps? How the hell was Google supposed to anticipate that?

Almost all of these in the table are like this. France fining Microsoft $64m (!) because their advertising cookie opt-out flow was not deemed clear enough? It's not that the flow didn't exist, mind you, it's that the button wasn't on the same page as the "accept cookies" button. Where in French or EU law does that exact requirement exist?

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