[Reelin]

Unless they knowingly and intentionally broke criminal law, that's completely over the top and unnecessary.

Fines should presumably start small and have a graduated structure to prevent the "just a business expense" approach from becoming a viable one.

The current regulatory problems are due almost entirely (IMO) to lack of active enforcement; why care what the penalty is if you know it won't happen to you regardless?

[dd36]

You don’t have to knowingly break the law to be criminally charged. If you’re in a position where a law might apply, you should do your due diligence or get legal counsel sign off. Selling private location data should easily cause a competent executive to think twice and confirm it’s okay.

[jefftk]

Why do you think corporate counsel didn't sign off on this?

[dd36]

I didn't opine on this instance wrt if legal counsel did or did not sign off. If corporate counsel signs off on criminal behavior, it should be criminally charged.

[vageli]

> Unless they knowingly and intentionally broke criminal law, that's completely over the top and unnecessary.

Why? If I drive drunk and a cop pulls me over, lack of knowledge is no defense. As the head of a company, why is a lack of knowledge of the goings-on of the company a defense? If you don't know the goings-on when you are in a position to, at the very least that should be categorized as criminally negligent.

[novok]

Its like making a mayor liable for the crimes of their city’s residents, after a certain scale it just becomes stupid.

Now if the mayor pushes for the crime or doesn’t put policy forbidding the crime, that is a different story.

[chmod775]

One of you is speaking of knowledge of the crime and the other is referring to knowledge of the law. Different things entirely.

[ClumsyPilot]

Why should fines for selling private data of millions of people start small? Will they ever get large enough to get companies to care?