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Australia Facebook The Almighty Buck

Australia Sues Facebook Over Cambridge Analytica, Fine Could Scale To $529B (techcrunch.com) 53

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Australia's privacy watchdog is suing Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica data breach -- which, back in 2018, became a global scandal that wiped billions off the tech giant's share price yet only led to Facebook picking up a $5B FTC fine. Should Australia prevail in its suit against the tech giant the monetary penalty could be exponentially larger. Australia's Privacy Act sets out a provision for a civil penalty of up to $1,700,000 to be levied per contravention -- and the national watchdog believes there were 311,074 local Facebook users in the cache of ~86M profiles lifted by Cambridge Analytica . So the potential fine here is circa $529B. (A very far cry from the 500k pound Facebook paid in the UK over the same data misuse scandal.)
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Australia Sues Facebook Over Cambridge Analytica, Fine Could Scale To $529B More

Australia Sues Facebook Over Cambridge Analytica, Fine Could Scale To $529B

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  • Lol. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Yes, I'm sure Facebook will pay them $529 _billion_ (pinky-finger-in-mouth).

    Totally going to happen. FaceBook would firewall block Australia and fire every employee in Australia immediately before that ever happened.

    Is Australia going to send Crocodile fucking Dundee over to get Zuckerberg? Oi mate, bit o marmite in your jammies you oiker, time for a jumpy croc over the pondises for you, this be a real knife!"

    • Re:Lol. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09, 2020 @04:31PM (#59812596)

      "Totally going to happen. FaceBook would firewall block Australia and fire every employee in Australia immediately before that ever happened."

      Facebook can block whoever it wants, it wont change the fact they broke the law or have to pay a fine.

      The fine won't be anywhere near that much but I really hope its over $30b.
      The only way the assholes running these companies will ever change their behaviour is if their business it put at risk.

      • "Have to pay a fine" or what? If they don't pay it what is Australia going to do if Facebook is no longer doing business in Australia?

        Especially if it's a $500B fine, they'd just declare bankruptcy. Though I doubt the US would allow Australia to do that to a large US company.

        • Re:Lol. (Score:4, Interesting)

          by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @05:23PM (#59812766)
          I think the most they could do is seize FB's Australian properties and assets in lieu of payment.

          There would be other factors in Facebook's decision to refuse to pay a fine. They'd give up the Aussie market, obviously, but they'd also set a precedent which would further hurt their credibility and brand value.

          They're already that company that played too fast and loose with the citizen data; they don't want to be that company that is known as a fugitive from government fines for their screwups.

          Part of that brand value is in a cushion of goodwill to protect it from regulation. Legislators whose constituents are pissed with FB may have more thoughts of breaking it apart or adding more privacy regulations Facebook doesn't want.

        • "Have to pay a fine" or what? If they don't pay it what is Australia going to do if Facebook is no longer doing business in Australia?

          Good question, typically jailing the executives from the Australian office would be a logical next step. You seem to think that just because Facebook is an American company it's untouchable. You'd wrong on many accounts. They are a multinational corporation. They make software, hardware, provide services and analytics well beyond just some shitty social media website.

          Especially if it's a $500B fine

          It won't be. That is simply the maximum fine possible by law. I don't know in what reality you think the courts would actually award that pena

        • "Have to pay a fine" or what? If they don't pay it what is Australia going to do if Facebook is no longer doing business in Australia?

          Especially if it's a $500B fine, they'd just declare bankruptcy. Though I doubt the US would allow Australia to do that to a large US company.

          But if the US allows Facebook to declare bankruptcy then it can properly incorporated and out of the hands of the young upstart Zuckerburg.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Sebby ( 238625 )

        Facebook can block whoever it wants, it wont change the fact they broke the law or have to pay a fine.

        Indeed - I hope they try actually; then the AU government could tell its citizens "Well, Facebook raped your privacy [urbandictionary.com], which as illegal, and this is how they reacted when we fined them. Probably best you not use it anyways"

        • Facebook: "Sorry we did this, here's a billion. Vote these ridicous assholes out of office."

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sd4f ( 1891894 )
          Most people couldn't care less. If the fine is too big, I can see FB blocking/exiting Australia, and then public pressure towards government will make the problem for FB go away. Enough people use it there, enough businesses advertise on the platforms, in general, that a widespread problem isn't FB's, but rather the Australia government's, particularly in a market of 25 million people, for FB, it's chicken scraps.

      • Re:Lol. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @05:51PM (#59812876) Homepage
        Things don't work that way. Consider, a few cases involving VZ. Canadian assets ended up in the mix. Because of global treaties, assets around the world might get taken. Aus is part of the UK "empire" as is Ireland, where much of all the precious IP and profits get parked.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        "Totally going to happen. FaceBook would firewall block Australia and fire every employee in Australia immediately before that ever happened."

        And nothing of value was lost.

      • Re: Lol. (Score:2)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        $1.7M for each leaked identity? What a preposterous fine.

        Australia's Privacy Act sets out a provision for a civil penalty of up to $1,700,000 to be levied per contravention -- and the national watchdog believes there were 311,074 local Facebook users in the cache of ~86M profiles lifted by Cambridge Analytica . So the potential fine here is circa $529B.

        They made up one number, multiplied it by another large number and got a really, really big number.

        Never gonna happen. Australia will have to come up with an ACTUAL number, and justify the maximum $1.7M/per violation fine for each one.

        $500 BN is the entire federal budget for the country of Australia - what sane person believes the impact of selling peoples Facebook data is worth a half-trillion dollar fine?

        https://budget.gov.au/2019-20/... [budget.gov.au]

        • Never gonna happen. Australia will have to come up with an ACTUAL number, and justify the maximum $1.7M/per violation fine for each one.

          I don't think you understand how laws work.

          They only have to come up with an actual number and justify the size of the violation if that is what the law says they have to do.

          Obviously, a fine this large is not going to be paid. So, what happens? Facebook has the threat of pulling out of Australia. The government has the threat of forcing Facebook out of Australia. It's a ga

          • Re: Lol. (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            They only have to come up with an actual number and justify the size of the violation if that is what the law says they have to do.

            Do you imagine there are laws that impose formulaic fines or penalties (like we're discussing here) which allows judges and/or prosecutors to invent the numbers used to calculate actual penalties?

            • Do you imagine there are laws that impose formulaic fines or penalties (like we're discussing here) which allows judges and/or prosecutors to invent the numbers used to calculate actual penalties?

              Yes. Here is an example:
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      It's a theoretical maximum, no different from some of the jail times imposed in the US, or akin to the "Hollywood math" applied to copyright infringers when they claim damages of hundreds of thousands of dollars for each download, and because there were millions of downloads... Assuming Facebook are found guilty (very likely) and lose the inevitable appeal (also likely) there will then follow a period of negotiations and plea dealing (basically, FB promising to be good in return for significant rebate) tha

  • Does Cambridge Analytica operate in Australia? How do you enforce this fine?

    Looks like some political posturing, must be election time down under.

  • Almost a whole six hundred dollars! Oh no!

  • We could invade and occupy their country for that much.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      It's taken much more than that to invade and occupy certain other countries over the last ~20 years.

      Assuming you're from the USofA, I'd say that a country that swallowed the bullshit from a bankrupt con artist to elect him to its highest office is going to have trouble coping with driving on the other side of the road, let alone our collection of poisonous/venomous flora and fauna, and let's not forget the apex predators in the moat.

      • > a country that swallowed the bullshit from a bankrupt con artist to elect him to its highest office

        To be clear, less than half us swallowed that bullshit. Our electoral college and other BS gives a smaller number of people an out-sized influence. If we went with a pure popular vote then things would be different. Where I live, my vote doesn't matter and that is the real BS.

        • People love to say this about the popular vote but since we've never had popular vote for President you can't really say it would just work out that way.

          For instance, I live in California so my vote doesn't really count because my state is pretty much solid blue. Any conservative in the state realizes this and likely only bothers to go vote because there are other things to vote on besides President. It's like that in most states.

          If it was a popular vote AND it wasn't first past the post winner take all the

          • Your vote doesn't matter for president. But it matters for state and local government. Republicans being competitive on a national popular vote is pure fantasy. And to be more precise, they decided that people in cities were worth less and that people living in rural areas should have their vote count as more so they could instead dictate the rules. Not sure how good a defense that has. Because more people live in one place, they should have a lesser voice? It's really indefensible without conceding you do

          • You act like we have some kind of perfect system. The Electoral College looks a lot like Gerrymandering - especially in the effect of creating the kind of wasted votes you are referring to. If you want your vote to count then you need to remove the barrier that makes your vote not count.

    • lol the US couldn't invade and occupy a tribe of mountain goat herders for ten times that in 20 years.

      • Was the invasion repulsed? Did the occupation fail to occupy?

        Don't be a dumb ass.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by MrNaz ( 730548 )

          It was just as successful as Vietnam. In other words, spend a huge amount of time there, bomb the ever living shit out of a ragtag bunch of dramatically unequipped militias, squander a massive portion of our national wealth effectively bankrupting ourselves, and then when we can't afford to continue, leave the country and declare victory after having achieved precisely fuck all other than a huge body count.

          Not being a dumb ass, just being realistic.

          • In one case, all the military objectives were successful, in the other case they (famously) were not.

            You're being a dumb ass.

    • It's their entire federal budget - $500BN.

      It would earn every Australian a one-year tax holiday if collected from facebook... assuming they can justify $1.7M/per violation, and that they can prove nearly 400,000 Australians had their personal data 'leaked'.

      It's a stupid large fine.

  • Looks like the Australia government (Liberal + National party coalition - conservatives) have found a way to get the budget back into surplus after having declared that the country is IN SURPLUS.

    By which they meant that it's predicated to be in this financial year ... if all their most optimistic assumptions hold ... oops, bushfires, potential pandemic (well, other failed assumptions meant there wasn't going to be a surplus even before those events).

    • They declare the current budget is in surplus, not that debt was eliminated.

      They are claiming exactly what Clinton claimed after he suffered thru multiple federal govt shutdown, blew a load on an intern because of his anxiety, and capitulated to the demands of House republicans led by Newt Gingrich and reduced spending. A one-time surplus doesn't mean all debt eliminated.

  • Zuckerberg goes to jail for 529 days.
  • Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina Talks Big Data at the Milken Institute's 2013 Global Conference - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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