Facebook FTC's $ 5 billion fine was so laughable that its price climbed after announcement / Boing Boing



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In 2011, the US Federal Trade Commission placed Facebook under consent decree after the company "cheated consumers by telling them that they could keep their information on Facebook privately and then repeatedly. [allowed] to share and make public ".

The way the FTC generally works is that, if it surprises a company in the process of committing a catastrophic act, it issues one of those "consent decrees" that is tantamount to "no longer doing it again or we will take it off". ;business".

But Facebook has done it again. Difficult. And instead of removing Facebook, the FTC fined them $ 5 billion, which may seem like a lot, it only accounts for about 30% of a company's revenues. only quarter and less than a quarter of the annual profits of the company. It is essentially a license fee for crime, a tax on non-compliance that allows the company to retain the vast majority of its profits from business activities. criminal.

And the street knows it. After the FTC announced the fine, Facebook's share price went up.

And as Peter Kafka points out, regulatory compliance costs are also not a deterrent: Facebook will pay the fine, will assume the cost of some additional lawyers and public relations representatives to ensure compliance with the rules. this new order and will continue the activities of, uh, issue a new world currency while exposing underpaid contractors to horrendous videos of people murdered for $ 15 an hour.

Facebook FTC's $ 5 Billion Fine Is An Embarrassing Joke [Nilay Patel/The Verge]

(Image: Jason McELweenie, CC-BY, modified)
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Cory Doctorow

I write books. My latest are: A graphic novel by YA titled In Real Life (with Jen Wang); a documentary book on the arts and the Internet titled Information Does not Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age (with introductions by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer) and a science fiction novel YA entitled Homeland (continuation of Little Brother). I speak everywhere and I tweet and tumble too.

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