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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

#221

Post by splatterxl »

edent wrote: post #167
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?

Taxes are very rarely hypothecated. In most countries, if you pay the "bear tax" it doesn't go into a big pot solely used for the eradication of bears. So fines like this normally go into the general pot of government spending. In the UK, data breach fines are spent on running the enforcement organisation - with the remainder going back to the state. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/who-we-are/how-we-are-funde...

UK is not involved in this case. It's the Irish Data Protection Commission -- https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/who-we-are

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

#222

Post by crazygringo »

Macha wrote: post #159
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…

> 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 absur…

No -- there's no such thing as Hollywood accounting in tech at the global level.

Yes you can certainly shift things around at the country level. But when you add up all the subsidiaries together in the single global corporation (the publicly traded one when it exists), the numbers are the numbers. Income minus expenses is a single, stable number that you can't fudge.

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

#223

Post by lupusreal »

crazygringo wrote: post #220
lupusreal wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing anything by fractions of profit is an invitation for Hollywood accounting. "Oops we have no profit because we have accountants who's job it is to shuffle money around in circles until everybody gets confused and gives up." > simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior. Yes it is. Nuke the corporation and burn all the investors. This will teach a lesson.

No it's not. The goal of punishment is correction of behavior, not destruction. By your logic, we ought to apply the death penalty for stealing a candy bar. Because that will teach a lesson too, no?

The purposes of punishment include rehabilitation, as you mention, but also deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, denunciation, and restoration:

Deterrence: Destruction of the corporation serves as a lesson to the rest of society, to scare them away from doing the same.

Incapacitation: A corporation which no longer exists cannot reoffend.

Retribution: The deserve nothing less.

Denunciation: Overlaps with deterrence; gives people the benifit of knowing they live in a society where wrongdoing is punished. Suppresses vigilantism.

Restoration: The funds retrieved by bankrupting and liquidating the corporation can, at least in principle, go towards undoing the harm the corporation caused.

As for stealing candy bars, I think there is merit to going light on children. But corporations? Corporations are not children. They aren't even people. They deserve no mercy.

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

#225

Post by switch007 »

nickdothutton wrote: post #103

Reminder: Meta was fined 1.2 billion euro by the Irish data protection authority. May 22, 2023 was the enforcement date. Question: How many euro do you think have been paid as of today, 2nd May 2025?

Exactly. A lot of the EU is just performative blustering, making the populations think they're the lord their saviour. Incredible PR and marketing.

That fine got an incredible amount of media attention.

The lack of actually paying it, not so much...

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

#226

Post by computerthings »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #46
graemep wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The US is already unlawfully sending people to foreign prisons. The US has over decades worked with dictatorships where it benefited them. The US has repeatedly and systematically overthrown legitimate democratic governments in favor of dictatorships where it benefited them. The US is founded on genocide of native Americans. The US has time and time again invaded countries for their resources. The US is the only coun…

[dead]

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

#228

Post by _t9ow »

aurareturn wrote: post #183
master-lincoln wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's valid to say you can only criticize somebody if you are doing better on that front. We should all watch and criticize other countries so humanity can improve. > Perhaps China not having the same values of European powers is a good thing in terms of overall peace? I fail to see why that could be the case. Why would different values support peace? > I would love to hear from EU citizens on why they s…

I don't think it's valid to say you can only criticize somebody if you are doing better on that front. We should all watch and criticize other countries so humanity can improve. I think it's valid. Fix yourself first. Telling someone else to stop doing something you're doing yourself is meaningless - especially when the EU is trying to position as the morally superior entity. I fail to see why that could be the case.…

> We should all watch and criticize other countries so humanity can improve.

Many (if not most) Europeans think it is perfectly fine when they criticise other countries; but when people from other countries criticise Europe, these very same Europeans tend to agitatedly accuse these critics of interference in their domestic affairs.

From these Europeans' point of view, humanity progresses in pre-ordained stages, and Europe has already reached the end of history, the pinnacle of human development, and other countries just need to catch up.

> because we've seen what happens when Europe has more power than the rest of the world. It wasn't pretty for the rest of the world.

Indeed. At the height of their power, the Europeans and the Americans colonised, pillaged, plundered, murdered, started wars, and enslaved. This isn't ancient history either; e.g. after World War 2 the French tried to re-colonise Vietnam, fought in a war against the Algerians to prevent them from declaring independence, and has continued meddling in the Sahel States up to the present day, among other atrocities.

And don't get me started about how the IMF has frequently been wielded as an extractive tool by Western nations to exploit impoverished countries in times of desperation. So when the West falsely accuses [0][1] China of debt trap diplomacy, the hypocrisy is palpable.

[0] https://yawboadu.substack.com/i/142330715/is-debt-trap-diplo... [1] https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-hambantota-port-deal-myt...

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

#229

Post by AlchemistCamp »

relistan wrote: post #156
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One of TikTok’s largest markets is Japan. Their shop revenues in particular, doubled in Japan last year. Those earnings are taxed locally and have nothing to do with Ireland.

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

#230

Post by lukeschlather »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #213
lukeschlather wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One of the big pieces of Snowden's leaks is how the NSA has a backdoor into all of Google. Of course they're "compliant with the law". The law is to give the government a backdoor. This stuff is decided in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the cases and rulings are classified.

We're talking about EU laws. The EU has inspectors, Google has EU datacenters which were built post-Snowden (and built due to the GDPR which was a response to PRISM.) I don't trust Google, but neither does the EU and if they're not fining Google I presume it's because they have more trust that Google is complying with their surveillance laws. Or possibly it's just because they are being strategic with when and how they engage. I do get a sense they have a list of concerns for each company and they are starting with fines for the largest concerns, and don't want to throw so much that the companies cannot respond.
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