[thr0waway1239]

>> According to the Merger Regulation, the Commission can impose fines of up to 1% of the aggregated turnover of companies, which intentionally or negligently provide incorrect or misleading information to the Commission.

Anyone read this and imagined the Facebook lawyers saw this clause, and said to Mark "Yes, the ROI on providing misleading information is completely in Facebook's favor"

[feintruled]

Makes me wonder if this sort of thing isn't a more civilised version of the bribe. "Tell us what we need to hear to drive this through and we'll fine you later." The beauty of the system being that no-one ever needs to explicitly offer or ask for money.

[bryanrasmussen]

the more civilized version of the bribe then also goes to the government as a whole instead of into the pockets of officials

[lotsofpulp]

The more civilized version of the bribe also gets officials a nice job with the bribe payer.

[bryanrasmussen]

not sure how much the revolving door revolves in the EU.

[rjsw]

There is also a new law that allows fines for capturing information on non-users, the fines for this can be 4% of turnover.

[tomp]

Anything that is belov 50% of the turnover is a joke, especially for new-age internet companies.

[thr0waway1239]

The saying usually goes that laws should be designed to a) disincentivize and b) not set bad precedents.

This law fails on both counts. No investor/shareholder will actually worry about this paltry fine. All other companies will take notice and decide that the penalty cost of infraction is much smaller than the opportunity cost of expansion. This is the kind of precedent that emboldens companies to do as they please.

Of course, all this assumes that governments and top tech companies don't have some mutual back scratching agreements going on.

[0verc00ked]

Can only speculate, but that doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility.

The possible gains due to all the loopholes are a big part of the problem. Seems that businesses like Facebook are incentivized to do the wrong thing.

But they also have to face the backlash of their actions. Though this sanction is barely going to deter any business from lying again, maybe public perception will.

[kome]

True. Too little, too late.