[residentfoam]

$5B is peanuts for FB, just Mark personal wealth is ~$74B, he could pay the fine himself.

The should have fined FB on some % of their total revenue, like GRDP. I'd say 15/20% at least.

[conanbatt]

5 billion is a truck load of cash and any company with the least competitive capacity will be willing to spend up to 4.999.999.999 to avoid paying it.

[residentfoam]

> is a truck load of cash

it is relative, for normal people it is indeed a ton of cash, but you have to compare that to the size of FB. In that respect, $5B is not that much.

[conanbatt]

Thats the wrong mental model. Most operations facebook does is in the few cents to a few dollars: that is insignificant to the total revenue, so they would forgo every single thing relative to the general income, and you can guess what happens afterwards.

[edf13]

The problem is 15/20% gets into scary headlines that nobody wants to be behind

[icebraining]

Their revenue for 2018 was $56B, so while not 15/20%, it's higher than the maximum fine of the GDPR (4%) would be.

Though the GDPR is per violation, so technically one can be fined for more than that.