Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:32 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #61

jokoon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The political think tank that promulgated the term "whataboutism" has created a bane on humanity.

Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy...

The term "whataboutery" has been used in Britain and Ireland since the period of the Troubles (conflict) in Northern Ireland.[10][11][12] Lexicographers date the first appearance of the variant whataboutism to the 1990s[1][10] or 1970s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tu+quoque&case...

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

#242

Post by tsycho » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

Since the fine hasn't been decided by the FTC yet, I am not sure I see the point of declaring a number?

For instance, if the FTC was going to be happy with say a $4bn fine, this tells them that FB is happy to pay $5bn.

The only reason I can think of is that FB is quite sure the fine wouldn't be less than $5bn (maybe FB is asking for significantly higher), and they are trying to price-anchor it. Maybe this is a way of telling FTC that FB will accept something close to $5bn without any lawsuits or other appeals, don't try to negotiate more?

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

#243

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

waplot wrote: post #154

Can someone explain what happens to the money when a big company pays a government agency this much? Does it go into the federal budget? or does the ftc use it for its own purposes?

For US gov't, the Federal Treasury. Victims may also be compensated.

https://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-govern...

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

#244

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #41

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #23

Seems like they should add another 0 to the fine after the recent hat trick: 1) Prompting users to give Facebook their email passwords.[0] 2) Using that email access to "inadvertently" upload the information of their email contacts.[1] 3) Storing said passwords and others in plaintext. [2] It's pretty impressive that a company could do something so brazenly malevolent and be confident that they will escape with no mo…

[flagged]

Can we quit it with posting this quote every time something negative on Facebook comes up. It’s practically a meme now and, quite honestly, it’s getting annoying.

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

#245

Post by jammygit » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

beat wrote: post #62

Finding the right fine for actions like this is hard. On one hand, we (as a society) want it to hurt, to cause the company real pain. On the other hand, we don't want to actually destroy the company. This leads to a "cost of doing business" problem, where evil practices become a preferred path for management, if evil is sufficiently profitable. The underlying problem is that corporations are NOT people, whatever the…

"We don't want to actually destroy the company"

It would be bad for investors, but... would it be that bad overall? I guess a replacement could theoretically be worse but they would have to commit to that ideal and not be dissuaded by the fate of their predecessors

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

#246

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

beat wrote: post #121

kodz4 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size of the forest fire matters. Facebook is probably the first company in history that can cause planet wide forest fires at scale and speed never possible before. That said I think they finally get that, after a long period of total denial. Not because of the fines and regulatory action which have come too late, but just from all the unintended unignorable consequences that have pilled up.

Yeah. The loss of long-term customers over privacy issues, addiction issues, and general creepiness is probably a greater concern to them than a fine. I quit using Facebook because I realized it's actively unhealthy for me, and I've been "healing" since. They don't want the dribble of middle class tech nerds leaving the platform to become a flood.

[deleted]

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

#247

Post by jammygit » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #168

remarkEon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which can probably only be mitigated by breaking it up. I think about this a lot with regard to Big Tech. For some companies it looks easy and obvious (e.g., Amazon spins off AWS). For Facebook is it really as obvious as "spin off Instagram"? I'm not really convinced of that. It seems like their power is so ingrained in Facebook itself that it's not immediately obvious what splicing off Instagram would do. What wou…

AWS + Amazon doesn’t seem obvious to me; would there be much to gain from breaking up a conglomerate into several businesses, when those separate businesses are in entirely different verticals? I suppose breaking off AWS might lower Amazon’s ability to subsidize an unprofitable retail business in search of market share, though that is probably a moot point now that Amazon is raising its prices in search of profitabil…

Might run fewer brick and mortar stores out of business before being forced to sell at a profit.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:57 AM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #183

beatgammit wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There definitely is a difference between someone accidentally tracking dog poo into your house vs someone doing it intentionally; in the first case, you all them to clean it up, and in the second case you break the friendship and/or seek criminal prosection. Likewise for big companies. If a company is acting badly, you need to figure out if it was intentional. In both cases you seek damages, but your approach to maki…

Right. That's like saying there's not a difference in involuntary manslaughter and murder. There is. Intent is very important. That's WHY so many people focus on the intention.

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by wil421 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 1:59 AM UTC

product50 wrote: post #118

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are you saying exactly? We can’t set our eyes on Facebook because someone else is worse?

Precedence matters - especially for government inquiries and fines. Also, people use FB by choice today while something like Equifax is forced upon us given institutional structures. So it is unclear why Facebook is more wrong than Equifax.

Equifax being negligent and Facebook repeatedly being caught doing bad stuff is different. You need to show intent, Equifax didn’t intended to get breached. Facebook certainly intended to do all the shady stuff they’ve been caught doing.

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

#250

Post by ian0 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #23

Seems like they should add another 0 to the fine after the recent hat trick: 1) Prompting users to give Facebook their email passwords.[0] 2) Using that email access to "inadvertently" upload the information of their email contacts.[1] 3) Storing said passwords and others in plaintext. [2] It's pretty impressive that a company could do something so brazenly malevolent and be confident that they will escape with no mo…

Spotted this in the guardian link:

>> “When we looked into the steps people were going through to verify their accounts we found that in some cases people’s email contacts were also unintentionally uploaded to Facebook when they created their account,”

Im struggling with the "unintentionally" part and to play devils advocate trying to figure out if it could be possible. Perhaps they had a service already that performed the login to upload peoples contacts on request and to save time reused this service to also verify the account?