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Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#221

Post by cjhopman »

samsonradu wrote: post #96
markdoubleyou wrote: post #77

"The Silicon Valley company and the F.T.C.'s consumer protection and enforcement staff have been in negotiations for months over a financial penalty" Honest question: What gets negotiated in this kind of settlement? What leverage does Facebook have in this situation to say, "no, that fine is too high"?

I'd assume it would look something like: "No, that fine is too high. We'll settle this in court(s) since we think we can do better." Now the FTC is facing a potentially big delay and a risk of no fine if the courts eventually hand Facebook a favorable decision.

> Now the FTC is facing a potentially big delay and a risk of no fine

The risk is much higher than that. There's a risk that a court rejects the entire justification for the fine greatly reducing both the ftc's ability to impose future fines and their power in general.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#222

Post by djakjxnanjak »

r3bl wrote: post #178
esoterica wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 month of pay is a lot more than a speeding ticket.

Finland, Switzerland, and the UK are the first three places that pop into my mind where speeding tickets are calculated based on the income of the offender. You'd have to be caught going way above the limit to be fined above 1 month of pay, but it's possible.

I think if you were talking about such a large speeding ticket, you wouldn’t use a speeding ticket as a metaphor for a small fine...

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#223

Post by drb91 »

mLuby wrote: post #203
scotchmi_st wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to contradict your overall sentiment, but people often focus on intention with these issues. I think that's wrong. Like, if someone treads dog poo into my house on their shoes, it doesn't really matter if they did it by mistake, or spent ages walking around town trying to find some dog poo to step in before coming to my house; the effect is that there is now dog poo on my carpet. We need to be more dispassionate…

>Like, if someone treads dog poo into my house on their shoes, it doesn't really matter if they did it by mistake, or spent ages walking around town trying to find some dog poo to step in before coming to my house; the effect is that there is now dog poo on my carpet. Have to disagree with this; I am much more forgiving of accidental harm than intentional harm. And speaking of dogs, pretty sure my dog understands thi…

Who was talking about forgiveness? I thought we were discussing ethics here. No amount of good intentions will make Zuckerberg's actions moral... at least the actions of which I'm aware.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#224

Post by djakjxnanjak »

cowpig wrote: post #206
shubhamjain wrote: post #101

It seems beside the "the bug bounty is far less than it would have sold for in the dark market" another meme has taken hold of HN. No matter how significant the fine is, there always be people clamoring how trivial it is compared to their revenues. It could have been $10B and you would hear the same thing. The only fine, then, worth slapping is one that bankrupts the entire company. Facebook made ~$7B net income in 2…

Facebook earned about $172 billion since 2013. Do you think facebook would have earned $167 billion while behaving legally? What about ethically? How much do you think Facebook would have earned if it acted responsibly? Once you add punitive damages, I don't understand how you could possibly think $5 billion is anything less than an order of magnitude off.

This fine is not for everything unethical Facebook ever did. This fine is for Facebook giving data to Cambridge Analytica. I don’t think Facebook got paid for that at all. When trying to google around for what people paid CA for the use of the data, I found numbers in the hundreds of thousands.

So in fact, Facebook is paying billions because they made a bad decision when choosing to grant access to data for research. That’s a lot of money. I think if you’d asked what a likely fine was when the story broke, people would have guessed a few million dollars.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#225

Post by bastawhiz »

wavefunction wrote: post #162
_cs2017_ wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I misread, but none of the articles linked above suggest any malicious intent. Could you clarify what specifically you're referring to?

Making money off "mistakes" that keep happening, darn it!

Storing plain text passwords doesn't make them money, but it negatively affects users, should those passwords be compromised. Though FB didn't prosper from the mistake, users potentially feel a cost, so the outcome is the same. Criminal negligence might not benefit the bad actor, but it's still a crime either way.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#226

Post by traek »

beager wrote: post #130
minimaxir wrote: post #2

> Every insider I've spoken to said any FTC fine on Facebook under $10 billion would be seen as a massive win, showing firm won't face serious consequences for privacy violations. Wall St. seems to agree in response to news of $3-$5b settlement [$FB up 4% after hours] https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1121148735818358784

In other words, market rewards Facebook for being fined only $5 billion by increasing their market cap $20 billion. Unreal.

Facebook announced earnings today; other new information besides the fine contributed to the after-hours jump.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#227

Post by RHSeeger »

slg wrote: post #139
tkxxx7 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook isn't actively trying to harm their customers, they simply don't care about them. That is amoral not evil. Don't bend yourself out of shape. Actively, happily ignoring the evil you have caused and continue to cause is evil.

That isn't evil. You wouldn't call a hurricane or a fire evil. You wouldn't call a person who kills someone in a no fault car accident evil. Evil isn't about results. It is about intent and motive. You can call Facebook a number of things from amoral to negligent or even criminal, but once you start talking about evilness you have to start judging their intentions and motives.

Lets say Mark gets in a waterballoon fight, but with the balloons full of gasoline. Lets say this happens in hospital. Mark is aware that his behavior is likely to result in great harm, many deaths. He doesn't _want_ people to die, it's not his goal, he just doesn't care that he's putting them in danger. He wants to have fun with his balloons, and that's all that matters to him.

Mark isn't trying to kill people. Mark _is_ evil, because he chooses to take actions that are likely to cause great harm.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#228

Post by revskill »

Still waiting for the day where social network is not based on identity, but based on real, useful content.

More than that, treat email just like password. That means, force users to change email regularly so that it's not leaked.

We need a better email system.

Re: Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

#230

Post by mecameron »

scotchmi_st wrote: post #112
monsieurbanana wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ashamed to say that up until now, when I saw Facebook (or similar) acting evil I thought about the quote, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Well, fuck that and fuck me, those people are not idiots, they're criminals.

Not to contradict your overall sentiment, but people often focus on intention with these issues. I think that's wrong. Like, if someone treads dog poo into my house on their shoes, it doesn't really matter if they did it by mistake, or spent ages walking around town trying to find some dog poo to step in before coming to my house; the effect is that there is now dog poo on my carpet. We need to be more dispassionate…

I think one thing missing in the responses here is that there is some culpability without intent. Assume there was not ill intent, the fact that so many things that went on still happens, means they didn't have sufficient controls, or checks and balances in the practices to prevent it from happening. That lack of control is itself part of the problem, and something they could have fixed any number of times.

My 9 year old son always rightfully claims that many of the harmful things he does was accidental. The problem is that he frequently leaves little margin for error in a lot of things he does. Follows his sister just a few feet behind his bike; of course your going to run into her if she stops quickly. Stacking your bowl, cup and silverware on your plate then bring it up one handed; of course they're going to spill.

Facebook's internal controls and practices are insufficient to manage their business. It doesn't matter if they didn't willfully intend to do all of the shit they did. They did intentionally create the controls, practices, and culture in place that allowed it to happen.

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