That’ll show them, right?
From the linked techcrunch article:
will face fines of up to one million NOK (~$100k) per day.
unless it obtains users’ consent to the processing
From the order itself:
The order applies from 4 August 2023
we may decide to impose a coercive fine of up to NOK 1 000 000 (one million) per day
Misleading title.
unless it obtains users’ consent to the processing
“Do you consent to the processing?”
‘No, I do not consent’
[Account Suspended]
“Wait, I CONSENT! Please, take all my data! Take all the data of my entire family and everyone I’ve ever associated with online! ANYTHING but suspend the account. PLEASE!”
‘Thank you for your patronage.’
It’s going to be closer to an E-mail saying “We are informing you that we have updated our privacy policy.” which nobody is going to read. And the change is going to be an added line of “With continuation of usage of our products and services in the Norway region you give meta the right to collect and processes your information for marketing purposes.”. Which also nobody is going to read. Voila, plausible consent.
For what it’s worth, a lot of countries with decent privacy laws are looking at closing that stupid loophole by requiring “affirmative consent” whenever something changes to the detriment of the consumer (i.e., more data, wider scope, etc.), meaning the companies would have to require the user to take some action to affirm they consent.
Those same proposals also have provisions prohibiting account suspension / blocking for not consenting. I.e., you can say “no” and continue to use the service exactly as before, though, newer features may be blocked.
You love to see it.
$100k is nothing to these people. It’s like your or I paying $0.25 a day. They see it as the cost of doing business.
Norway has a population of 5-6 mil. I don’t think there’s enough of them to generate 100k/day, is there? Or maybe that’s worth it, what do I know? They’re not gonna get fined that much anyway
Based on https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120114/how-does-facebook-fb-make-money.asp 39$/user/year for Facebook & Messenger alone. In a country of 5-6M people, let’s say 5.5M, with 70% of the population being users ( from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/584917/facebook-users-in-norway-by-age-group/ ), that gives ~3.85M users * 39$ = 150.15M$/year, 12.5M$/month, or 417k$/day. Norway is a rich country, so one should assume a Norway user’s revenue is higher than the 39$ average.
So, 100k$/day is certainly a decent figure for Norway’s operations, meaning a local Facebook senior manager must be in panic right now. But Would that local senior manager have any power to change anything given Norway is such a small market but yielding would set a precedent for all other EU members? That’s what is at stake!
It should be a number “per user” “per day” not just a “per day”. Make it really hurt based on how much it’s being done.
Or just make a cost per day that is punitive.
If I did something outright evil and criminal, and my only punishment was a $0.25 fine, I would feel motivated to keep doing it again.
My point is that the costs shouldn’t be the same if you do something evil to one user, vs a million. If it were, it’s just a loss leader until I can make more than I lose.
I mean, any money flowing from them to nation is good at the end of the day.
That’s peanuts for a company that size. That’s the cost of doing business.
Facebook somehow makes about $18 per person on the planet in ad revenue.
Norway is 5 million people or $90 million/year all else being equal.
$100k/day is $36.5 million/year.
So, it’s less than it should be by probably a factor of 4-5, but still not so small they won’t feel it
