[drra]

In the '90s, a friend of mine was in the pharma industry. During a training session, the question came up: "Is it possible to market a useless drug as a panacea?" The straightforward answer, according to the trainer, was "Yes—if the projected profits surpass the potential liability costs." All of the outcry was likely anticipated when they made that decision.

[dharmab]

Inversely, heard at a very large AdTech company when a room full of engineers was told about then-upcoming GDPR requirements:

"Can't we just pay the fines?"

"No. The fines scale as a percent of revenues."

[theshrike79]

The "percentage of global revenue for the whole parent corporation" was the genius bit in GDPR.

Otherwise Facebook could've just founded Privacy Violation Inc and done all the bad shit there. There's just one employee, Frank, and he's paid minimum wage.

Now if, for example, Youtube fucks up the GDPR fines are calculated on the global annual revenue of all of Alphabet Inc.

[adastra22]

If the percent is less than the profit margin…

[dharmab]

n% of a multibillion dollar company? The shareholders would be out for blood!

[fendy3002]

Depends on if the opposite (following GDPR) give more profit margin then this one.

[scotty79]

> All of the outcry was likely anticipated when they made that decision.

You can always miscalculate.

[fransje26]

Reminds me of the insurance company dialogue in Fight Club..