|
Facebook is the greatest pound for pound profit machine in recent history (formulated as high enough sales to at least be high up on a Fortune 500 equivalent of the time, combined with very high margins). It surpasses Standard Oil, Microsoft, Apple, Exxon, GM, Ford, US Steel, IBM and Aramco at their peaks. ~44% net income margins; 50% operating income margins; on $40 billion in sales. Nothing like that has ever existed before. Apple, which is of course a huge profit generator, is typically closer to 20-25% net income margins. Microsoft got pretty close to Facebook type figures at its margin peak in 1999-2000. Facebook has absolutely nothing to fear from GDPR. They can permanently abandon the entire EU market in terms of advertising, provide their product with zero advertising in that market, and they'd still have one of the most profitable businesses on earth and would continue growing larger yet. A 4% tax on global revenue? Laughable for Facebook. And that's the maximum hit. That's $1.6 billion last year for Facebook. That drops their net income margin down to 40% instead of 44% (~$16b in profit instead of ~$17.6b). They could pay a $1.6 billion fine every year for the next century just out of cash and never notice it (profit would continue adding to their cash, and then returns yielded on the cash-equivalent holdings would pay for the $1.6 billion fine). Unless the EU dramatically increases the penalties, it's barely even a speeding ticket for Facebook. And in reality, they can easily avoid it just by complying with GDPR as it pertains to the EU. Facebook has such an extraordinary profit machine they can afford to drop the profitability of that market, and simply not care. |
The GDPR is applied by each member state, and Facebook operates in them all. I see no reason in the GDPR why each member state can't apply its own fine. How does 28% sound?
https://nrkbeta.no/2018/04/05/facebook-reported-to-data-prot...