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Facebook Agrees To Pay Cambridge Analytica Fine To UK (bbc.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the what-a-joke dept.
Facebook has agreed to pay a $640,000 fine imposed by the UK's data protection watchdog for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. From a report: It had originally appealed the penalty, causing the Information Commissioner's Office to pursue its own counter-appeal. As part of the agreement, Facebook has made no admission of liability. The US firm said it "wished it had done more to investigate Cambridge Analytica" earlier. James Dipple-Johnstone, deputy commissioner of the ICO said: "The ICO's main concern was that UK citizen data was exposed to a serious risk of harm. Protection of personal information and personal privacy is of fundamental importance, not only for the rights of individuals, but also as we now know, for the preservation of a strong democracy."
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Facebook Agrees To Pay Cambridge Analytica Fine To UK More

Facebook Agrees To Pay Cambridge Analytica Fine To UK

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  • they now have fines based on turnover...

  • Pocket money! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grumpy-cowboy ( 4342983 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @09:16AM (#59361688)

    Is it a joke? 640 000$ ??? I'm sure Facebook now understand that they did something wrong and never do it again.

    • Re:Pocket money! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @09:36AM (#59361746) Homepage
      Facebook was fortunate that Cambridge Analytica blew-up and hit the courts prior to the introduction of the GDPR. The $640,000 was pretty close to the maximum possible fine the ICO could levy under the legal guidelines at the time, and I'm pretty sure that FB realises that if they were to face another Cambridge Analytica style breach of data in the UK they'd be looking at fines from the ICO approaching 4% of global turnover applied under the GDPR - and potentially from other states within the EU as well.

      Yes, it's a slap on the wrist, but also a dodged bullet as well, and as such hopefully a wake-up call that they did indeed do something wrong and will thus try harder never to get caught doing it again.

      • Facebook was fortunate that Cambridge Analytica blew-up and hit the courts prior to the introduction of the GDPR.

        Don't worry. Once BREXIT happens, that pesky GDPR will not affect the UK.

    • Hey, $640k should be enough for anyone.

    • Is it a joke? 640 000$ ???

      Don't despair, I could probably raise that money myself if I sold my house and car. If Facebook need any help paying they could always give me a call.

  • That's about half of what a mid-level manager likely makes in the company, maybe not even that much. I bet they're really sweating it...

  • Is this an out of season April Fool's joke?

    All a "tap on the wrist" does is just re-enforce the (immoral) behavior that companies can just go ahead and break the law with pretty much impunity -- since there are no "serious" consequences to not do it the first place.

    If we don't take data leaks seriously what motivation to companies have? That's right almost none. This is akin to pissing in the wind hoping the wind will change direction.

    This should be $640K per person whose data was leaked.

  • The "ask no questions" policy that allowed Cambridge Analytica to scrape Facebook data make them billions of dollars. They paid out a 600k fine. Net revenue: lots.

    The take away for Facebook: we made huge profits and got away with it. Change nothing. Let it happen again, and again, and again.

    • The "ask no questions" policy that allowed Cambridge Analytica to scrape Facebook data make them billions of dollars. They paid out a 600k fine. Net revenue: lots. The take away for Facebook: we made huge profits and got away with it. Change nothing. Let it happen again, and again, and again.

      Due to GDPR, future fines could approach 4% of global turnover.

      The scary part is considering even that fine may be viewed as worth it.

      • Due to GDPR, future fines could approach 4% of global turnover.

        You think GDPR will survive BREXIT? LOL!

    • Let it happen again, and again, and again.

      Or not. They just discovered that they got hit with the maximum legal amount of damages. If this happened only 1 year later they'd be facing 4% of global revenue as the fine from a single country. Laws change.

      Anyone who thinks they should do this again should be fired immediately because they will sink the company in short order.

      • Profit margins in Media DA approach 60%. Take the 4% and call the attorneys to reform the company under a new name and transfer the data cube.

  • "...a $640,000 fine..."

    So in other words, like 1/10th of a second's worth of their profit?

  • in 2014 when I was wasting away in one of the san francisco incubator I met the CEO of an analytics company which was making no money with subscription, he told me how he made money: when users remove apps, they don't even know that apps still retain permission to ALL THEIR DATA. So the guy was slurping all these data and selling them to ad agencies. Facebook built it like that on purpose.
    • When everyone has the same data from Candy Crush it a commodity that is worth anything anymore?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shotgun ( 30919 )

        The data is cheap. The correlation to identify a single person is what the advertisers are willing to pay for.

  • The UK wrote a strongly worded letter to Facebook.

  • Where's my article?

    • And I'll bet you were forced to admit liability, unlike Facebook. Seem you can pay off responsibility quite cheaply.
  • Corporate collaboration with psychological operations deployed in wanton attacks upon liberal democratic processes are apparently fair game and pay to play. What a bargain. Who know betraying our way of life, freedom, and equality could be so profitable? Well, of course the hard-right never forgets it, this has been their MO of their edicts right back to the beginning in the late classical era.

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