Ireland Fines Instagram a Record $400 Million Over Children's Data (reuters.com) 32
Ireland's data privacy regulator has agreed to levy a record fine of 405 million euros ($402 million) against social network Instagram following an investigation into its handling of children's data, a spokesperson for the watchdog said. From a report: Instagram plans to appeal against the fine, a spokesperson for parent Meta Platforms said in an emailed statement. The investigation, which started in 2020, focused on child users between the ages of 13 and 17 who were allowed to operate business accounts, which facilitated the publication of the user's phone number and/or email address. "We adopted our final decision last Friday and it does contain a fine of 405 million euro," said the spokesperson for Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), the lead regulator of Instagram's parent company Meta Platforms.
What about dogs? (Score:2)
My dog made an account. Is he protected too?
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Only if he's between 13 and 17.
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Only if he's between 13 and 17.
So between 1.86 and 2.43 human years?
$47.6 billion in revenue (Score:2, Informative)
Re:$47.6 billion in revenue (Score:4, Informative)
That's what Instagram had in 2021 (estimated). So that's $402,000,000 / $47,600,000,000 = ~0.8% of annual revenue. That sounds like a rounding error to me. What exactly does the EU hope to achieve with this?
For one thing this is not the EU issuing the fine, it's Ireland. If the EU was getting interested in Instagram's foul business practices Instagram would be in quite a bit more trouble than just getting a little attention from one of the most business friendly data protection regulators in the world. Secondly,, there are 26 more countries in the EU who are probably getting equally interested in Instagram's data abuses as Ireland is. Finally, instagram like all corporations is being run by soulless corporate weasels who'd sell their children into slavery to post a record fiscal quarter. They will feel the loss of ~0.8% of their annual revenue as keenly as a Mafia boss will sense somebody scamming a few grand off of the profits from a 5 ton cocaine shipment.
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Secondly,, there are 26 more countries in the EU who are probably getting equally interested in Instagram's data abuses as Ireland is.
Nope. Corporations can pick and choose what EU country's privacy laws apply to them, and then that'll apply to all their dealings in the entire EU. So this is peak data protection for instagram in Europe. This is steelie neelie's doing.
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Secondly,, there are 26 more countries in the EU who are probably getting equally interested in Instagram's data abuses as Ireland is.
Nope. Corporations can pick and choose what EU country's privacy laws apply to them, and then that'll apply to all their dealings in the entire EU. So this is peak data protection for instagram in Europe. This is steelie neelie's doing.
Can you back that up? I'm pretty sure Instagram is no different from other corporations in that their foul business practices probably include more than shitting over data protection rules to harvest the personal data of legal minors. On top of that I find it hard to believe that one EU country can pass insanely weak data protection laws and the other countries can't and won't do anything when Instagram rips off the children of their own citizens and then laughs all the way to the bank while citing Irish l
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0.8% of revenue, not profit. Before they make any money, all they costs come out of that. I can't find a statistic for profit for Instagram, I guess they roll it all into Facebook revenue for reporting purposes. Anyway, it doesn't make $47 billion in profit.
So that fine is actually quite a hefty proportion of their profit for that year. And even if it was 0.8%, no company would ignore that. It's 400 million dollars they could have invested or returned to shareholders.
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That's what Instagram had in 2021 (estimated). So that's $402,000,000 / $47,600,000,000 = ~0.8% of annual revenue. That sounds like a rounding error to me. What exactly does the EU hope to achieve with this?
Same thing it always accomplishes. Nothing, which is exactly what Greed N. Corruption paid for when they bought their leaders long ago. Fines used to be a slap on the wrist. Now they're practically a slap on the ass from Coach CEO.
Corporate Arrogance. Get used to it, because there's a whole lot more of it coming. We allowed trillion-dollar corporations to grow and dominate the planet. Any control you thought you had, left long ago. With choice.
And to think, all they had to do was give a highly addict
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Get used to it, because there's a whole lot more of it coming.
Ref: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Probably that they pay without fighting it.
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I've had traffic tickets more significant relative to my income than this.
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that shit needs to stop; happy to see more and more governments putting on the breaks on these social platforms where any young kid can get access to and will mess them up royally. Nothing good has come from giving kids access to any of those social platforms. NOTHING.
Ridiculous (Score:1)
It is of course, ridiculous.
There should be no "protection" of privacy for shit people willingly post in a public space. I mean, how dumb can it get?
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I'm very right wing too and I also agree that corporations should be utterly unfettered and be able to do absolutely anything they like for money regardless of the consequences.
Fine streamlining (Score:2)
All the various fascist countries that like these fines should get together and streamline stuff. Declare the relationships between their laws, so that if you get fined in one jurisdiction, you automatically get fined in all other jurisdictions with an equivalent law.
So, you violate law number 142 in Ireland. Here is your fine.
Oh, look, these other 200 countries have an equivalent law, and you do business there too, so you now owe that fine to these 200 places too.
Just go all in on the bullshit and stop pre
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Just go all in on the bullshit and stop pretending it's about other than revenue generation.
Corporations formed entities in Ireland specifically for the purpose of tax avoidance. Now they're paying for it. I love it.
Stop whining (Score:3)
Europe: *does something*
Americans: WAHHH hands off our guy. You euro people just hate freedom and democracy REEEEEEEEE!
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You should get better voices in your head. The ones you have are paranoid, cynical, and snobby, a really unfortunate combination for your life experience.
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not all Americans are pro privacy, not all Europeans are pro privacy.
blocking companies from exploiting kids is a good thing, no matter where you live. If you are of the opinion that the current crop of "social" platforms are doing "not much wrong", that would explain why you don't get why Instagram/FB is getting fines.
Wow! (Score:3)
Imagine if Ireland had been this tough on terrorists. But I guess there wasn't any money in that.
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So, you're a UK imperialist... and you think this is a big, effective, serious fine, too?
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So, you're a UK imperialist...
Because I don't like people trying to kill me? Fuck off.
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Oh yes, let's fine all terrorists. Let's fine them 1% of their yearly earnings. This harsh measure will surely stop them.
Well, it's a step up from protecting them and letting them collect their funding from all those "Irish" people in Boston tax-free.
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From what i understand from people who've lived through the troubles, the IRA were really a drug smuggling operation with "freedom fighting" as a cover.
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From what i understand from people who've lived through the troubles, the IRA were really a drug smuggling operation with "freedom fighting" as a cover.
No. That was mostly the other side. The IRA planted bombs and shot people more or less at random (obviously, not completely but the targets were rarely individually picked out) and relied mostly on fund raising in the US and Ireland to pay for arms etc. Drugs came in quite late on and as I said, the loyalists were more into that sort of thing because they found it harder to raise funds other ways.