Roughly €100 per Irish resident. Not bad.
More like what, €1.50 per EU citizen.
Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
151–160 of 248 posts
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Questionable whether that will still be true in 4 years. At least China can still be expected to operate rationally.
Really? A nice rational genocide or two? China is an expansionist dictatorship. It would be ridiculous to suggest it is more trustworthy than the US. The US is actually acting rationally IMO. People just look at headlines and do not dig into the reasons. You might not agree with the reasoning, but it is not irrational. For example the tariffs clearly follow from arguments made by Trump's appointees (such as Bessent a…
Most genocides are rational. They occur when the genociders sincerely believe they're being attacked by the victims.
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#153'massive' -- by which standards? It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue. And TikTok's global revenue last year alone was estimated at $20 billion to $26 billion [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/technology/tiktok-ban-byt...
Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior.
If global revenue is $20B and we assume 20% profitability, that's $4B, and so this fine is 15% of global profit.
That's a gigantic fine.
You also have to remember that tons of these regulations are vague and unclear and massively open to interpretation, and that companies can genuinely believe they are complying, and their lawyers agree, but then judges still rule otherwise, because it's ultimately just a matter of opinion because of the vagueness.
You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior.
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#154Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#155'massive' -- by which standards? It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue. And TikTok's global revenue last year alone was estimated at $20 billion to $26 billion [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/technology/tiktok-ban-byt...
Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior. If global revenue is $20B and we assume 20% profitability, that's $4B, and so this fine is 15% of global profit. That's a gigantic fine. You al…
> You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior.
This is explicitly not a concern under GDPR. The "one-stop shop" mechanism means that all issues across the EU get funneled to the lead supervisory authority, which is always Ireland because that's where EU subsidiaries are headquarters for tax purposes.
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because, like many other tech companies, Tiktok is funneling most of their global revenue through Ireland where the corporate tax rate is very low. I don't know the specifics of the mechanism used by Tiktok. But, most companies do this by registering all of their IP through their Irish company and then paying licensing fees to the Irish entity that just happen to be all of their profit abroad. This is why the Irish r…
Maybe Alibaba is a better example. Why should Alibaba increasing its global revenue through growth in the Chinese market mean that Ireland should fine it more? If it's because earnings in Ireland or even maybe the entire EU went up, then I can see the justification. But if Alibaba's revenue is going up because of Alibaba improving logistics within China, why should Ireland get anything for that?
In Tiktok's case it's because the revenue is actually flowing through Ireland.
EDIT: here's more about the general mechanism I'm referring to https://archive.is/0hcAK
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> China is an expansionist dictatorship. It would be ridiculous to suggest it is more trustworthy than the US. China never threatened to annex portions of EU countries, unlike the US. If anything, China is definitely more reliable, as its only disputes with EU are on trade, not anything ideological or that threatens the integrity of each party.
EU has issues with human rights violations regularly happening in China. China has even sanctioned European politicians voicing critique. Only recently some of those sanctions were lifted by China so they can negotiate trade agreements with the EU. China might be more reliable than the US right now, but ideologically they are further away from the EU than the US I think.
There is an actual genocide going on in Palestine, with two million people trapped in a strip of land and bombed and starved until they consent to emigrate- and the EU is silent and failed to sanction Israel in any way. How can you seriously talk about "issues with human rights violations"? It's ridiculous.
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior. If global revenue is $20B and we assume 20% profitability, that's $4B, and so this fine is 15% of global profit. That's a gigantic fine. You al…
> You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior. This is explicitly not a concern under GDPR. The "one-stop shop" mechanism means that all issues across the EU get funneled to the lead supervisory authority, which is always Ireland…
Yes, but there are countries outside of the EU who may also decide to fine based on global revenue.
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#159'massive' -- by which standards? It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue. And TikTok's global revenue last year alone was estimated at $20 billion to $26 billion [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/technology/tiktok-ban-byt...
Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior. If global revenue is $20B and we assume 20% profitability, that's $4B, and so this fine is 15% of global profit. That's a gigantic fine. You al…
> Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior.
Nah, hollywood accounting is alive and well in tech. Especially in Ireland, where plenty of tech companies are being "charged" slightly absurd fees for services or trademark licenses by subsidiaries or parents in other countries to avoid making a profit on their tax filings.
Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China
#160Hope the use that money to improve things for the people there!