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Facebook Privacy

Brazil Fines Facebook $1.6 Million for Improper Sharing of User Data (reuters.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Brazil's Ministry of Justice said on Monday it has fined U.S. tech giant Facebook 6.6 million reais ($1.6 million) for improperly sharing user data. From a report: The ministry's department of consumer protection said it had found that data from 443,000 Facebook users was made improperly available to developers of an App called 'thisisyourdigitallife.' The data was being shared for "questionable" purposes, the ministry said in a statement.
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Brazil Fines Facebook $1.6 Million for Improper Sharing of User Data More

Brazil Fines Facebook $1.6 Million for Improper Sharing of User Data

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  • What a pittance (Score:3)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @12:48PM (#59570818)
    This isn't anything to them. They prolly could get all of that from loose money in Zuckerberg's couch.

    • Re:What a pittance (Score:5, Insightful)

      by morcego ( 260031 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @12:56PM (#59570848)

      Oh, a legal precedent costs much more than the case dollar amount. It opens the doors for other fines and lawsuits.

      • .. a legal precedent ... opens the doors for other fines and lawsuits.

        Only in Brazil.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        You can have all the precedent you want - there remains the minor issue of enforcement. Brazil's only choice really is to block facebook at the ISP level...but even that doesn't put money in their pocket.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by morcego ( 260031 )

          Actually, no. Facebook does have offices in Brazil, and if very much susceptible to all legal measures.
          Why would anyone even consider the need to block access to a company to hold it legally responsible?
          Brazil is not that much of a backwater place. Companies actually do business here.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
            So you're right. Sao Paolo. Who'da thought.

            Brazil is not that much of a backwater place. Companies actually do business here.

            Now you're just being patronizing. There are many countries that facebook doesn't have an office in. Brazil doesn't have to be at the top of the list, especially for an online company that could have servers literally anywhere.

            • FB has offices in 35 countries. But even in those they do not have offices, someone must be collecting ad revenue, the sole reason they exist. And that is local cash that can be impounded. So pretty much anywhere FB has users, they want advertisers, which means money to trap.
    • they coulda got fined a Brazillian Dollars!

      Thank you, I'll be here all night. Tip the veal and try your waitress.

    • In other news the same court fined the local peeping tom $0.045 for peeping into his neighbor's bathroom. Justice, yeah!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 )

      It also avoids the bigger issue --- the fact that facebook itself has the data.

      Who cars if some facebook data gets leaked to third parties with neither the skills nor computer resources to invade your privacy even if they wanted to.

      The bigger problem is that facebook can and does have such resources and can and does invade your privacy.

    • Yeah, let's call it what it is: a shake down. Brazil knows this is less than a slap on the wrist for them, but they also know that it's far easier for FB to just pay it out to shut them up than it is to fight it.
  • That's not a fine. How can a fine be less than $4 an occurrence? This doesn't make sense.

  • Would Facebook even notice $1.5 million missing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bryan Gritton ( 5427430 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @01:09PM (#59570890)
    That amount would barely count as a rounding error in terms of Facebook's profits.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      As a CPA friend of mine once told me, generally you don't worry about pennies here and there when you're preparing a financial statement. The cutoff is 5%. If a discrepancy is less than 5% of a total, it makes "no material difference" to what the financials tell you about the company.

      Facebook posts quarterly profits in the 4-6 billion range. 5% of 5 billion is $250 million. Anything less than, say, $100 million is swamped by statistical noise in a quarterly earnings statement, which is the finest gradat

  • and tell Brazil that should cover them through 2030.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ulaboy ( 961460 )
      Probably not... 9. Brazil ( Brazil is the ninth-largest economy in the world) Brazil Nominal GDP: $1.87 trillion Brazil GDP (PPP): $3.37 trillion Brazil is the largest and most populous nation in Latin America. With a nominal GDP of $1.87 trillion, Brazil is the ninth-largest economy in the world. The nation that had been riding on the commodity wave suffered multiple setbacks with the end of the commodity supercycle, in addition to internal problems of corruption and political uncertainty, which dampen

  • Bribe ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BosstonesOwn ( 794949 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @01:23PM (#59570916)

    I mean really, $4 per user ? Sounds like Brazil shaking down Facebook for pocket change. Bet the money goes missing once it hit the government bank account. The corruption down there is astounding.

  • A teeny tiny slap on the wrist. They'll do it again.
    • This is why other countries need Internet gateways, not just Russia, China, and a few middle-east countries. Then Brazil could censor Facebook. I doubt that anyone that matters there would care. Nor would Facebook revenues be affected.

  • 1 million dollars!!!

  • "Brazil Fines Facebook $1.6 Million for Improper Sharing of User Data"

    So in other words, about 10 seconds of profit?

    $1.6 billion would have left a mark, but $1.6 million isn't even a rounding error for Facebook.

  • Why does anyone consume this service? They've demonstrated time and again their complete disregard for the law and for user privacy.

    People are just fucking stupid.

  • He goes to the toilet and comes back, and probably made 1.6 million during that period of time, so...
  • Surely that's a typo.Surely that should read 1.6 billion.
    1.6 million would be about 10 seconds of profit to FaceBook.

  • Financial cost to use FaceBook's datacenters, servers, services, app, and messenger: $ 0.00
    (that's also 0.00 in Brazilian Real)

    Financial cost for FaceBook to serve its 75.6 million Brazillian users: A lot more than zero.
    https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

    FaceBook should send a message to Brazil and all other countries that want to "take their blood money" and leave the Brazillian market entirely. Sure, they lose those 75.6 million users... or maybe those users lobby their crime-ridden government to remove t

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