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Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

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Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#201

Post by hulitu »

ta1243 wrote: post #178
linkregister wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incomplete understanding of the stakeholders in these rulings. 1. The goal of the fines is to act as a deterrent and to encourage companies to get back into compliance. 2. The arbiters aren't operating in a vacuum. Bankrupting services that the citizens of a country rely on is unpopular and not in service of goal #1. 3. We know that this is the case because Uber and other ride sharing services were able to…

So a company should be free to break as many laws as it wants and never have any risk to its owners?

cough Airbnb, Uber cough. /s

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#202

Post by eastbound »

PeterStuer wrote: post #123
Rygian wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being that the actual absolute amount should not get as much attention as the percentage of revenue it represents.

If I have 100M€ in revenue with a 60% margin, a 6% revenue fine while not negliable can be brushed off as the price of doing business. If I have 100M€ revenue with a 2% margin, a 6% fine might mean bankruptcy.

If you have 18% margin (a more reasonable assumption in most IT), then it brings it down by 30%. Investors will care very much.

Except state actors.

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#203

Post by ipaddr »

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #165
lukeschlather wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, TikTok is not accused of directly profiting off of this, they are accused of operating as part of the Chinese espionage apparatus. Assuming that this is the case, TikTok is going to be happy to continue paying fines as long as they break even worldwide. And the US is making no serious attempts to rein in this sort of behavior so they've got all that US profit to use.

I've still yet to see any evidence that TikTok is anymore of a spying/espionage tool than your average app on any device. But I guess if people just keep repeating that It will make it true. Never mind, I forgot, Western Intelligence orgs are trusted sources of truth and definitely wouldn't spy on me or lie to me. My Bad!

In this case they are sending data to China. That's the evidence you were asking for. The average app isn't sending data to China. Thr faangs are collecting data and making money your government is using this data in police investigations but China is using it to undermine your government and way of life.

Pretty bad.

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#204

Post by ipaddr »

ta1243 wrote: post #172
crazygringo wrote: post #153

Earlier 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…

When you get a fine in Europe it tends to be related to your income. Not your income after your expenses, your actual income. Finland for example will fine you 100k for speeding if your income is high enough. In the UK fines range from 50% of your weekly income (band A) to 600% of your weekly income. Someone on £500 a week income and spending that on housing, food etc, could pay £3k. Someone with the same offence on…

Someone unemployed speeding to a job interview gets a pass? That seems like a big loop hole.

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#205

Post by arlort »

tiffanyh wrote: post #163

Slightly OT: how does the money from fines get used by the government that issued the fine? e.g. does it go into funding data privacy related activities/work?

In the EU it means next year member states have to pay a little bit less into the budget

The EU budget itself doesn't really change so it's not "more money" in a practical sense

(I realised I might've skipped a step but this fine is EU wide, not Ireland specific, the fine gets paid to the EU IIRC)

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#206

Post by ipaddr »

hbarka wrote: post #130
tlb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than the small amount is the length of time it took. If you accept the accusations at face value, China has been spying on a large fraction of EU citizens for 4 years and can keep doing it for another 6 months (after which they probably won't actually stop) for the eventual fine of a few dollars per victim. The US isn't moving any faster, and most other countries aren't moving at all. So the end result is that…

Does Meta or X get the same scrutiny or is this the China bogeyman?

An American company following the laws does not get the scrutiny that another company working with a hostile government to eliminate your way of life does. Why would they? Are they somehow equal because they both can be downloaded in the social app category in the play store?

That's like asking why can I buy things from facebook marketplace but can't use my American credit card on vk.com?

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#207

Post by lukeschlather »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #170
TechDebtDevin wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've still yet to see any evidence that TikTok is anymore of a spying/espionage tool than your average app on any device. But I guess if people just keep repeating that It will make it true. Never mind, I forgot, Western Intelligence orgs are trusted sources of truth and definitely wouldn't spy on me or lie to me. My Bad!

I don’t think anyone credible is taking the position that Meta and Google and Microsoft don’t spy for the US government but TikTok does spy for the Chinese government. This is simply a transparent double standard.

It's not a double standard. Meta is getting fines too, for similar offenses. Google actually seems to be compliant with the law.

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#208

Post by platinumrad »

ipaddr wrote: post #203
TechDebtDevin wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've still yet to see any evidence that TikTok is anymore of a spying/espionage tool than your average app on any device. But I guess if people just keep repeating that It will make it true. Never mind, I forgot, Western Intelligence orgs are trusted sources of truth and definitely wouldn't spy on me or lie to me. My Bad!

In this case they are sending data to China. That's the evidence you were asking for. The average app isn't sending data to China. Thr faangs are collecting data and making money your government is using this data in police investigations but China is using it to undermine your government and way of life. Pretty bad.

The average app also isn't made by a company that is headquartered in China.

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#209

Post by bryan_w »

dmix wrote: post #132
ziddoap wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue, rather than an absolute number, it's not really all that massive. It's like 3% or so. And you can't really just look at the 3%, you have to factor in what benefits (money, political sway, whatever) they received in exchange for the data. For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 year…

> When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue, I've always found this viewpoint a bit childish, with little regard for how businesses work IRL (even the ignoring the obvious profits vs revenue part). Reminds me of how every comment section re: some crime story is people calling for death penalty or how a mob should kill them first. Justice is never that simple. I understand people want businesses they don't like…

I'm convinced that when someone makes an argument using revenue vs profit, it is either a literal teenager (look at that huge number! I've never seen a number so big), or an inauthentic poster (just putting the fries in the bag)

Re: Irish privacy watchdog hits TikTok with €530M fine over data transfers to China

#210

Post by bobmcnamara »

lukeschlather wrote: post #207
SequoiaHope wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone credible is taking the position that Meta and Google and Microsoft don’t spy for the US government but TikTok does spy for the Chinese government. This is simply a transparent double standard.

It's not a double standard. Meta is getting fines too, for similar offenses. Google actually seems to be compliant with the law.

Google was started on CIA MDDS grants.
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