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Meta ordered to pay $25 billion to New Mexico after jury finds company misled consumers about data privacy (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 6 days ago by [M] to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 27 points 6 days ago (7 children)

It will get reduced. It was already reduced from $219 billion to $25 billion. It will get cut down or thrown out in appeal, but even if it was $25 billion, they made way more than that in profit specifically due to misleading people on privacy all these years. And this won't stop them from doing it in the future, it's just a cost of doing business for these companies not anything that's enough to change behavior.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

    This is just New Mexico
    It would be nearly $12K per person.

    That rate nationally, would be $3.8T!

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  • [–] 8 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    And no living creature can abide that kind of penalty - it’s inhuman. Which is why the whole judgement must be thrown out as cruel and unusual punishment that violates the 8th amendment to the US constitution. Remember - corporations are people, too. 🥺

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  • [–] 4 points 6 days ago (3 children)

    This is just New Mexico

    Sorry to break it to you, but only Florida can still fine them for this Cambridge Analytica issue.

    The other 48 States were part of a single lawsuit that already settled for $17 Billion. Total, not per-State, for all 48 of them as a group.

    So it's up to Floridaman lawyers to actually get a real punishment. Unlikely.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago (2 children)

    I didn't mean to imply this amount would be applied nationally. I merely wanted to put it in perspective. It's not small amount relative to the number people it represents.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    I merely wanted to put it in perspective. It’s not small amount relative to the number people it represents.

    More than 43 million violations of the New Mexico consumer protection law... $25 Billion fine. That's only about about $500 per violation. Out of a $5,000 maximum, per violation. There are roughly 2.1 Million people in New Mexico... so at most that's $12k per person.

    Do we really think that $12k is a deterrent for a company like Meta?

    It’s not small amount relative to the number people it represents.

    It only looks like it's not a small amount simply because the numbers at the scale companies like Meta operate at are outrageous.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

    $12K per person?
    $500 per violation?
    Those are absolutely deterrent numbers!
    How much do you think they make with each violation?
    These are online advertising numbers were talking about here. They probably don't make even an extra $5 for each violation.

    Not too long ago Proton calculated how much Google makes from various users. (Sure, Proton has a bias here to inflate the numbers. But that just means they'd be lower if anything. It's just illustrative of the ball park, since we're talking about Meta, not Google.) US users were worth $1600 per year on average. So yah $12000 per user is massive; Absolutely a deterrent.

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