[prof-dr-ir]

'massive' -- by which standards?

It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue. And TikTok's global revenue last year alone was estimated at $20 billion to $26 billion [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/technology/tiktok-ban-byt...

[lolinder]

To hurt enough to be worth changing the fines don't have to be a fraction of their global revenue, they have to be significantly more than the benefit gained from the illegal behavior. According to that article TikTok made $10B of that $20B in the US alone, which puts a cap on their European revenue of $10B (likely significantly less because this ignores Brazil and Indonesia, which according to the linked article are its largest markets by user count).

€530m is ~$600m, so this fine is at least 6% of their relevant 2024 revenue, and likely substantially higher. I don't know enough about their business practices to know if that's a big enough chunk to make up for what they gain by cheating, but it's definitely not a wrist slap.

[lukeschlather]

The thing is, TikTok is not accused of directly profiting off of this, they are accused of operating as part of the Chinese espionage apparatus. Assuming that this is the case, TikTok is going to be happy to continue paying fines as long as they break even worldwide. And the US is making no serious attempts to rein in this sort of behavior so they've got all that US profit to use.

[TechDebtDevin]

I've still yet to see any evidence that TikTok is anymore of a spying/espionage tool than your average app on any device. But I guess if people just keep repeating that It will make it true.

Never mind, I forgot, Western Intelligence orgs are trusted sources of truth and definitely wouldn't spy on me or lie to me. My Bad!

[SequoiaHope]

I don’t think anyone credible is taking the position that Meta and Google and Microsoft don’t spy for the US government but TikTok does spy for the Chinese government. This is simply a transparent double standard.

[lupusreal]

They use spies, we use spies. Simultaneously, both sides try to stop the other.

Calling this "double standards" or hypocrisy isn't technically wrong but it's also very tedious. Of course countries have a different policy towards their own spies and foreign spies. Why should anybody ever expect otherwise?

[SequoiaHope]

I mean it in the “technically correct” usage, in reply to someone who seemed to expect a unified standard between China and the US. My point is to be clear that the US is also spying on US citizens, but the government and media only dislike it when other countries do it.

Personally I don’t like that the US government runs mass surveillance against US citizens.

Also mass surveillance and spies are related but have some differences. The US can run mass surveillance through US corporations without spies, though I’m sure they also have spies.

[lukeschlather]

It's not a double standard. Meta is getting fines too, for similar offenses. Google actually seems to be compliant with the law.

[hnuser123456]

One of the big pieces of Snowden's leaks is how the NSA has a backdoor into all of Google. Of course they're "compliant with the law". The law is to give the government a backdoor. This stuff is decided in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the cases and rulings are classified.

[bobmcnamara]

Google was started on CIA MDDS grants.

[BobaFloutist]

It's only a double standard if you consider the Chinese government to be functionallly identical to the US government, which I don't.

[hulitu]

Famous last words. /s

[ipaddr]

In this case they are sending data to China. That's the evidence you were asking for. The average app isn't sending data to China. Thr faangs are collecting data and making money your government is using this data in police investigations but China is using it to undermine your government and way of life.

Pretty bad.

[platinumrad]

The average app also isn't made by a company that is headquartered in China.

[chmod775]

> And the US is making no serious attempts to rein in this sort of behavior

You mean besides forced divestment under threat of an outright ban?

[nickthegreek]

it’s legally banned and nothing has changed. so where is the serious attempt?

[chmod775]

I'm curious. Do you want to elaborate on what would pass the bar for a "serious attempt" in your opinion?

Because I consider TikTok's situation in the US very seriously bad.

[nickthegreek]

Trump just announced he is willing to give another extension.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/04/trump-tiktok-ban-extension-...

[vkou]

So the thing about fines for non-compliance is that they only have one direction to go if you don't comply.

[PurpleRamen]

> 'massive' -- by which standards?

Other fines? Going by amount, it seems somewhere in the top 20 of highest single case fines of all time. Top 3 if we just look at privacy fines in Europe.

> It is high time we got used to companies being fined a reasonable fraction of their revenue

How does "getting used to it" changes the classification? It's still a massive amount, even it such numbers are becoming more common. And especially as they should not become common.

[Rygian]

The point being that the actual absolute amount should not get as much attention as the percentage of revenue it represents.

[PeterStuer]

If I have 100M€ in revenue with a 60% margin, a 6% revenue fine while not negliable can be brushed off as the price of doing business. If I have 100M€ revenue with a 2% margin, a 6% fine might mean bankruptcy.

[eastbound]

If you have 18% margin (a more reasonable assumption in most IT), then it brings it down by 30%. Investors will care very much.

Except state actors.

[crazygringo]

Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior.

If global revenue is $20B and we assume 20% profitability, that's $4B, and so this fine is 15% of global profit.

That's a gigantic fine.

You also have to remember that tons of these regulations are vague and unclear and massively open to interpretation, and that companies can genuinely believe they are complying, and their lawyers agree, but then judges still rule otherwise, because it's ultimately just a matter of opinion because of the vagueness.

You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior.

[Macha]

> Just a nitpick -- a fraction of their profit (net income), not revenue. Most of revenue already goes out the door as expenses. If you fined as a reasonable fraction of revenue, you'd simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior.

Nah, hollywood accounting is alive and well in tech. Especially in Ireland, where plenty of tech companies are being "charged" slightly absurd fees for services or trademark licenses by subsidiaries or parents in other countries to avoid making a profit on their tax filings.

[crazygringo]

No -- there's no such thing as Hollywood accounting in tech at the global level.

Yes you can certainly shift things around at the country level. But when you add up all the subsidiaries together in the single global corporation (the publicly traded one when it exists), the numbers are the numbers. Income minus expenses is a single, stable number that you can't fudge.

[gaiagraphia]

The internal operations of a company shoud be irrelevant to nations.

If a company is taking £billion out of a nation's spending power, and doing so with nefarious practices, that's what should be fined.

If bankruptcy is a worry, then comapnies shouldn't fly so close to the sun when adopting immoral practices.

Income is the only reliable thing you can tax. Trying to calculate profit for international companies is an absolute joke which is massively inefficient. Why an Earth should governments employ entire teams to second guess internal bookkeeping?

If you want to take a billion from a nation's citizens, better be sure you're providing a legal service. I mean, are drug dealers punished on profit?

[crazygringo]

Nothing of what you're saying makes any sense.

> Income is the only reliable thing you can tax.

Then why does every country on earth tax corporate profit, not income?

> Why an Earth should governments employ entire teams to second guess internal bookkeeping?

Because that's how you make sure companies pay their taxes? Because it's a net gain to employ those teams because they find much more tax cheating than it costs to employ them?

> If a company is taking £billion out of a nation's spending power

Companies don't. They take cash and in return provide services that are even more valuable. The entire idea of free trade is that it's positive-sum for all.

[GeoAtreides]

>You also have to remember that tons of these regulations are vague and unclear and massively open to interpretation, and that companies can genuinely believe they are complying, and their lawyers agree, but then judges still rule otherwise, because it's ultimately just a matter of opinion because of the vagueness.

This is the equivalent of the famous Babbage anecdote, but for the law. That's absolutely not how the law or regulatory compliance works, not in Europe at least.

[crazygringo]

...but it absolutely is? Why do you think fines get appealed, and companies often win on appeal?

If there weren't vagueness and shades of gray, then appeals courts would barely need to exist.

[ta1243]

When you get a fine in Europe it tends to be related to your income. Not your income after your expenses, your actual income.

Finland for example will fine you 100k for speeding if your income is high enough. In the UK fines range from 50% of your weekly income (band A) to 600% of your weekly income. Someone on £500 a week income and spending that on housing, food etc, could pay £3k. Someone with the same offence on £50k a week would be fined £300k.

[crazygringo]

Well, individuals and corporations are different.

Individuals are also taxed on all their income, whereas corporations are taxed only on their profit.

Corporations are effectively intermediaries in production chains. Profit is the only meaningful metric, how much value do they add. Individuals are at the "end" of the chain, how much value do they consume.

The proper analogy of a fine being based on income for an individual, is for a fine being based on profit for a corporation.

[ipaddr]

Someone unemployed speeding to a job interview gets a pass? That seems like a big loop hole.

[lupusreal]

Doing anything by fractions of profit is an invitation for Hollywood accounting. "Oops we have no profit because we have accountants who's job it is to shuffle money around in circles until everybody gets confused and gives up."

> simply bankrupt a corporation, which is not what you want if your goal is to change behavior.

Yes it is. Nuke the corporation and burn all the investors. This will teach a lesson.

[crazygringo]

No it's not.

The goal of punishment is correction of behavior, not destruction.

By your logic, we ought to apply the death penalty for stealing a candy bar. Because that will teach a lesson too, no?

[lupusreal]

The purposes of punishment include rehabilitation, as you mention, but also deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, denunciation, and restoration:

Deterrence: Destruction of the corporation serves as a lesson to the rest of society, to scare them away from doing the same.

Incapacitation: A corporation which no longer exists cannot reoffend.

Retribution: The deserve nothing less.

Denunciation: Overlaps with deterrence; gives people the benifit of knowing they live in a society where wrongdoing is punished. Suppresses vigilantism.

Restoration: The funds retrieved by bankrupting and liquidating the corporation can, at least in principle, go towards undoing the harm the corporation caused.

As for stealing candy bars, I think there is merit to going light on children. But corporations? Corporations are not children. They aren't even people. They deserve no mercy.

[crazygringo]

> Corporations are not children. They aren't even people. They deserve no mercy.

What?

Corporations provide us with valuable products and services we rely on. They employ people.

Corporations aren't evil, as you seem to think. Like people, they make mistakes, because they're made of people.

Your attitude is sociopathic, quite honestly. It scares me.

[lmkg]

> You also have to remember that individual countries fining on global revenue runs the risk of fines "duplicating" each other for the same or similar behavior, again bankrupting a corporation when the goal should be to change behavior.

This is explicitly not a concern under GDPR. The "one-stop shop" mechanism means that all issues across the EU get funneled to the lead supervisory authority, which is always Ireland because that's where EU subsidiaries are headquarters for tax purposes.

[gundmc]

Yes, but there are countries outside of the EU who may also decide to fine based on global revenue.

[ta1243]

Either obey the law in those countries, or don't do business there.

[observationist]

This is wrong, and even revenue isn't sufficient - you want to fine a sizeable fraction of the total value of all assets of the company based on the scope, duration, and severity of the violation.

Companies don't protect user data. They store, silo, and secure user data for as little cost as possible. No meaningful consequences means they will continue to harvest and disperse user data at an increasing rate until we get serious about requiring responsible practices and accountability.

The risk of being bankrupted is what will keep a corporation behaving well.

Penalties should be fatal to a corporation. If Microsoft or some random new startup had to follow the same regulations and protect user data to some bare minimum standard, and we apply the same degree of penalty, rather than some arbitrarily large fine which the mega corps are happy to pay, we can affect behavior.

The big companies have teams of lawyers who effectively (and sometimes explicitly) collude with the beancounters and MBAs to enshittify their products and services and milk every last drop of revenue, even exploiting the data of non-customers who just happened to encounter some peripheral surveillance apparatus.

We need to protect individual data privacy and restrict anything except informed consensual tracking. We need to mandate ephemerality and basic security standards. We need to make violations of these regulations lethal to a company, and impose mandatory minimum jail time for c-suite offenders.

Anything short of this results in overt, blatant, repeated violations of the laws by the big companies because they're happy to pay $5m or even $50m if it means they extract $500m more revenue and lock out any potential disruptive competition.

This would effectively mean that giant platforms which cannot responsibly store and manage user data would not be able to continue operation at the scale they're at. It would mean fragmentation and decentralization of various services, disincentivizing monopoly, improving market health, driving product and service progress.

Without harsh and extreme consequences that are as meaningfully painful to FAANG sized megacorps as they are to a one man startup, the problems won't ever be resolved. FAANG and tech outpaced regulation, resulting in effectively the total pwnage of data for more or less every living human on the planet. This is unacceptable, and the only way it changes is for the US to drop the hammer on the exploitive and irresponsible practices that led us here.

Let these asshats go bankrupt. We don't need Meta or Alphabet or Amazon. They're not entitled to screw the world for profit. If they can't operate ethically and responsibly, then they shouldn't be allowed to operate at all.

[linkregister]

This is an incomplete understanding of the stakeholders in these rulings.

1. The goal of the fines is to act as a deterrent and to encourage companies to get back into compliance.

2. The arbiters aren't operating in a vacuum. Bankrupting services that the citizens of a country rely on is unpopular and not in service of goal #1.

3. We know that this is the case because Uber and other ride sharing services were able to violate the law and convince voters to have the law changed to permit these services.

4. Fines impacting net revenue are dealt with seriously by companies when they are adequately large, e.g. 10% of net revenue. Compliance departments are not funded as a job creation or charity exercise. When companies report earnings, these fines frequently determine whether earnings guidance is achieved. This impacts company officers' compensation.

tl;dr, you passionately believe in these views, but it is not one held by the majority. Your minority view should not be the basis of public policy.

[ta1243]

So a company should be free to break as many laws as it wants and never have any risk to its owners?

[linkregister]

> Fines impacting net revenue are dealt with seriously by companies when they are adequately large, e.g. 10% of net revenue.

That's financial risk.

For criminal risk, a change to existing laws would have to be made; they currently carry only civil penalties to the organizations involved. I think that those laws would be popular. They would have to be carefully crafted to narrowly target behavior without unacceptably impairing capital investment and business formation. That would negatively impact the quality of life of the countries' residents.

[hulitu]

cough Airbnb, Uber cough. /s

[ta1243]

> Let these asshats go bankrupt.

No need to go bankrupt, just force-issue more shares, diluting the existing shareholders. These are then sold on the open market and the revenue goes to paying the fine.

Only if the share price drops to zero does the company then go bankrupt.

[tlb]

Worse than the small amount is the length of time it took. If you accept the accusations at face value, China has been spying on a large fraction of EU citizens for 4 years and can keep doing it for another 6 months (after which they probably won't actually stop) for the eventual fine of a few dollars per victim. The US isn't moving any faster, and most other countries aren't moving at all.

So the end result is that potentially hostile countries can run vast spying operations for a long time with no major consequences. As long as they do it with funny videos with annoying soundtracks.

[hbarka]

Does Meta or X get the same scrutiny or is this the China bogeyman?

[Macha]

Yes: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/23/tech/european-union-apple...

Meta has had multiple rounds of €xxxM fines already from the EU.

[platinumrad]

The EU is fairly consistent in its application of fines. I think what the poster is commenting on is that when Meta collects data it's "Meta is spying", but when ByteDance collects data it's "China is spying".

[input_sh]

X is rumored to be hit with a billion dollar fine soon(ish), so yes: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/technology/eu-penalties-x...

[ipaddr]

An American company following the laws does not get the scrutiny that another company working with a hostile government to eliminate your way of life does. Why would they? Are they somehow equal because they both can be downloaded in the social app category in the play store?

That's like asking why can I buy things from facebook marketplace but can't use my American credit card on vk.com?

[platinumrad]

I honestly don't think the Chinese government cares about my way of life.

[ipaddr]

They want to destabilize your government and change your system of government to communist. They don't care about you but they want power over you.

[_DeadFred_]

Someone here floated that instead of fines it should be government ownership in the company. You dilute the original owners, so they get punished for bad behavior. As a part owner, the government is now 'inside' and has a whole lot more visibility/ability to request information. And over time, should bad behavior continue, the government gains control.

Look at a company like Tesla whose stock is super high but profits low. A percentage of profits wouldn't mater to them. But government control via stock would get their attention and the attention of stock owners real quick.

[charlieyu1]

€530M is enough to be a deterrent under normal circumstances.

Now we all know it is not normal but then it should be handled with a lawsuit/law enforcement. Don’t think any organisation is going to do that far alone.

[dmix]

How is $600M not massive?

[ziddoap]

When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue, rather than an absolute number, it's not really all that massive. It's like 3% or so.

And you can't really just look at the 3%, you have to factor in what benefits (money, political sway, whatever) they received in exchange for the data. For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 years... They would have made a profit despite the fine!

($150M is obviously pulled out of my ass, just as a demonstration of how when you look at the fines from a bigger context, it might just be a line item on the expense report that's worth taking the risk on)

[dmix]

> When viewed as a percent of their annual revenue,

I've always found this viewpoint a bit childish, with little regard for how businesses work IRL (even the ignoring the obvious profits vs revenue part). Reminds me of how every comment section re: some crime story is people calling for death penalty or how a mob should kill them first. Justice is never that simple.

I understand people want businesses they don't like to simply not exist anymore but that doesn't mean it's rational to throw up insane fines because you spent 2min doing back of a napkin math of revenue * (imaginary deterrent %)

> For simplicity, if they got paid, I don't know, $150M/yr from China for the data and they've been sending data for (at least) 4 years... They would have made a profit despite the fine!

The Chinese government doesn't need to pay companies to exfiltrate data from companies within their reach.

[ziddoap]

>I've always found this viewpoint a bit childish,

It's childish to view fines as a percent of revenue rather than an absolute number...? That's certainly an odd take.

Fines are meant to be a deterrent. If you fine Microsoft $50,000 they will literally not notice. If you fine my locally owned convenience store $50,000 they will probably be forced to close. It's absurd to ignore that.

>I understand people want businesses they don't like to simply not exist anymore

I did not say this, or anything close to it.

My entire point was that looking at a number in a vacuum and saying "that's massive" or "that's not that big" is silly. What's "massive" to some companies is a tiny blip on the radar of other companies.

I cannot understand anyone who thinks looking at fines in context is "childish".

Not looking at fines in context is something only the largest and richest of companies would be a proponent for, because it would make the fines absolutely meaningless for them while being effective against anyone smaller.

[bryan_w]

I'm convinced that when someone makes an argument using revenue vs profit, it is either a literal teenager (look at that huge number! I've never seen a number so big), or an inauthentic poster (just putting the fries in the bag)

[rsynnott]

Arguably it's still at a level where it could be considered a cost of doing business. One school of thought is that for corporate punishment to be an effective deterrent it has to be _existential_; if you tell a company "if you do an illegal thing that makes you an extra billion dollars a year, we might eventually get around to fining you a few hundred million", then the rational company will say "sure, send us the bill whenever", and get on with doing the illegal thing.

[ta1243]

To someone on the median global salary of $300 a month, $1000 is a lot of money.

To someone on $500k a year, $1k is a night out in vegas.

To a billionaire, $1k is toilet paper.

[hulitu]

> 'massive' -- by which standards?

By "EC" [1] standards. If you not pay for the product "EC", you are the product. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon pay good money to "EC".

[1] European commision.

[AlchemistCamp]

What bearing does their global revenue have on what Ireland has any jurisdiction to fine them? I'm not a fan or user of TikTok, but what they earn on other continents is none of Ireland's business.

[DrScientist]

The Irish regulator is acting on behalf of the EU as TikTok European head quarters are in Ireland.

And in terms of jurisdiction - it's a bit like you visiting Ireland on holiday and committing a crime - and then arguing they have no jurisdiction over you as you are only there for 2 weeks.

[_Algernon_]

A more apt comparison is that you get a fine for speeding abroad, and argue that you don't have to pay it because you earned that money in your home country.

It's ridiculous.

[AlchemistCamp]

Sure, it's fine for Ireland to punish someone for a crime committed in Ireland, but my question was about what bearing revenue earned on other continents was any business of Ireland's.

A more accurate version of your analogy would be Ireland choosing to punish a tourist for littering with a dramatically higher penalty than native Irish would face based on their New York salary.

[relistan]

Because, like many other tech companies, Tiktok is funneling most of their global revenue through Ireland where the corporate tax rate is very low. I don't know the specifics of the mechanism used by Tiktok. But, most companies do this by registering all of their IP through their Irish company and then paying licensing fees to the Irish entity that just happen to be all of their profit abroad. This is why the Irish regulator punches way above its weight globally and is why it is often the entry point for EU regulation on foreign firms.

[AlchemistCamp]

Maybe Alibaba is a better example. Why should Alibaba increasing its global revenue through growth in the Chinese market mean that Ireland should fine it more? If it's because earnings in Ireland or even maybe the entire EU went up, then I can see the justification. But if Alibaba's revenue is going up because of Alibaba improving logistics within China, why should Ireland get anything for that?

[relistan]

In Tiktok's case it's because the revenue is actually flowing through Ireland.

EDIT: here's more about the general mechanism I'm referring to https://archive.is/0hcAK

[trollbridge]

Ireland's business is whatever Ireland wants it to be, if TikTok wants the pleasure of being allowed to operate in Ireland jurisdictions.

And yes, everything a multi-billion dollar company does is indeed the government's business - and the people's business. We have a right to regulate them as we see fit.

[curiousObject]

>Ireland's business is whatever Ireland wants it to be

Ireland offers a favorable tax and regulatory environment, within the EU, so this punishment is not only Ireland’s business. It represents the EU.

[andrepd]

A fine is supposed to be a deterrent to illegal behaviour. Much like a fine of 100€ for speeding is unlikely to dissuade someone driving a Ferrari, a fine directed towards a company needs to be proportional to that company's revenue, or else it will just be factored as a cost of doing business.

How much value did tiktok derive from flaunting these privacy laws? It's not entirely unlikely that it was less than 530M€.

[netdevphoenix]

If you breach a regulation or commit a crime in a jurisdiction, your behaviour in other jurisdictions WILL be considered during your judicial process.

[graemep]

Ireland was acting on behalf of the EU, so at the very least the fine should be substantial relative to EU revenues.

The law does say global revenues, and I think that is a deterrent to treating fines as just a cost of doing business.

[AlchemistCamp]

Yeah, relative to EU revenues would be fairly reasonable.

[b112]

Absurd. Damages need to be inline with 'how to force corrective behaviour'. They are to be designed to FORCE the company to change how they are behaving.

If their global revenue was $1000, and the local revenue is $1, fining them $0.10 isn't going to help much.

[noirscape]

It's a case involving their European customers.

If you do business in Europe, there's a bunch of (good!) privacy regulations you have to comply with. One of these is that you're not allowed to transfer the data to a jurisdiction that doesn't follow equivalent protections to the GDPR[0]. TikTok transferred European user data to their Chinese servers, which is a pretty obvious no-go, since the Chinese government is an authoritarian watchdog that inherently can't guarantee these protections (as the GDPR also applies to transferring data to the government.)

Ireland has jurisdiction because the EU offers something called the "one stop shop" concept, where a foreign company can declare that they have EU headquarters in a specific member state, and from that point on the only EU regulations they have to directly worry about are how they're implemented in that country in specific[1]. Every major tech company is therefore in Ireland because the country is small enough to essentially steamroll local politicians with lobby money, leading to very lax enforcement until the EU starts applying pressure.[2]

[0]: This also causes issues with data transfers to the US, and in the most extreme interpretation, makes it so that you probably can't do business with both Europe and the US at the same time in the first place. This is because of the CLOUD act, which goes across jurisdictions and is something the US government can use to compel any service provider to hand over data.

[1]: Of course, a country can still have it's own laws that a company can run afoul of on top of that.

[2]: Other countries with this issue are Luxembourg (Fintech companies love Luxembourg because they can just hire all the good lawyers, meaning you can't negotiate legal disputes there effectively) and the Netherlands (which is a EU-based tax haven for large corporations that aren't in either sector.)

[fidotron]

> Every major tech company is therefore in Ireland because the country is small enough to essentially steamroll local politicians with lobby money

No, it's because Ireland had a very low corporation tax with the strategy of becoming the preferred HQ for foreign companies in the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republi...

"By 2018, Ireland had received the most U.S. § Corporate tax inversions in history, and Apple was over one–fifth of Irish GDP. Academics rank Ireland as the largest tax haven; larger than the Caribbean tax haven system."

[docdeek]

Do you know if there is a reason they would not domicile in Malta? It's an EU Member State, English speaking, and if buying off politicians in Ireland is easy, it must be easier in Malta with a population of only 550,000 people.

[jdietrich]

Malta is simply too small to accommodate the European headquarters of a major tech company. It's not enough to just put a brass plaque on a door - you need to actually run your EU operations primarily in that country. Meta and Google have thousands of staff in Ireland.

Malta is (along with Gibraltar) a preferred destination for gambling operators.

[noirscape]

My guess is just physical/lazy reasons. Before this, they were homed in the UK, whose special arrangements meant that they could avoid a lot of EU regulations that way.

Then Brexit happened and they just moved to the nearest available option.

[rsynnott]

Yeah, this is pretty ahistorical; most multinational tech companies already had their EU headquarters in Ireland before Brexit. A lot of companies _did_ move operations from the UK to Ireland (or sometimes the Netherlands) as a result of Brexit, but it was mostly financial and insurance companies (plus some pharma, medical devices etc), and those didn't generally move their headquarters if they weren't already in Ireland.

[diffuse_l]

I'm pretty sure Ireland was home to a lot of global corporations EU headquarters way before brexit...

[trollbridge]

Malta is no longer trying to be an "offshore" destination with lax regulations.

[rsynnott]

> Every major tech company is therefore in Ireland because the country is small enough to essentially steamroll local politicians with lobby money

It's more about taxes and an efficient well-understood legal system (similar to the Delaware advantage on the latter). While the DPC used to be kinda useless, it has somewhat gotten its act together, and today issues most of the big GDPR fines. If you were trying to specifically avoid GDPR scrutiny, you'd locate elsewhere.

[_Algernon_]

They choose to operate here. Of course it is Ireland's business.

[scott_w]

Why not? A country can, for the most part, set whatever level of fines they want within law. You can make an argument about the practicality of any given punishment but that's separate from the morality (which, from the tone of your comment, I assume is where you're coming from).

[AlchemistCamp]

Sure. A country can set "whatever level of fines they want within law". For example, Russia assessed a $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 against Google. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/31/tech/google-fines-russia/...

At the base level, I suppose my point was about morality, but my intent was about rationality. A country can write laws that it can take all the money a company earns across the entire globe, but it's not a very reasonable position, IMO.

[scott_w]

Why is it not reasonable? Because it outweighs the harm? Because it could shut down a company? Because it’s unenforceable? Because of some “it looks silly to me” standard?

I can tell you Russia’s “fine” is not reasonable because it’s not enforceable and exists to be purely performative. It’s not the same thing as Ireland putting a fine based on global revenue but still within their power to enforce.

[dmos62]

These are global companies. Why pretend you're only dealing with a small fragment of it? I don't see a reason to be overly conservative.

[rsynnott]

These secrets are contained deep within the article, which of course it is highly improper to read on this here orange website:

> The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin.

This is likely under the GDPR, whose penalties are based on global revenue. If TikTok doesn't like it, it is of course free to cease activity in Europe (strictly speaking the GDPR also protects European citizens outside of Europe, but in practice if a company doesn't operate in Europe there is little that the EU can do).

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

You think TikTok cares about money? They're a propaganda arm. They don't give a shit about profitability.

[Mistletoe]

Will they really pay it though? I don’t know the rules, etc.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

They'll probably fight it and pay it if they risk being kicked out of Ireland or the EU.

[TechDebtDevin]

Weird that a "communist propaganda arm" would donate millions upon millions to RIGHT WING American Politicians/Parties who oppose almost all leftist beliefs, and have a board made up partly of Western Capitalists.

[0]: https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-campaign-donations-ti...

[1]: https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/tiktok-ceo-tr...

[2]: https://mezha.media/en/2025/01/17/tiktok-to-be-the-main-spon...

Seems pretty dumb if you're a Chinese Propaganda wings to fund foreign political opponents who literally want your society to fail. But I guess if Western Intelligence sources tell you they are a propaganda wing IT MUST BE TRUE!

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

What's weird that an expansionist superpower would donate to the isolationists of another superpower?

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

That's... not weird at all, actually. If they think the right wing politicians having power would be beneficial to them in some way, why would they not donate to them in the hypothetical context that they are a propaganda arm for an adversarial government to those right wing politicians' government?

It's worth nothing that the parent comment didn't call them a "communist" propaganda arm and you seem to have added that so you could say it wouldn't make sense for "communists" to donate to RIGHT WING politicians, which is a rather weak argument that ignores decades of geopolitics.

[TechDebtDevin]

Maybe people should stop and wonder if TT just built a stellar product that is very good at showing people what they want to see, not tricking people lmao... These same people who make these claims about TT are simply projecting. They should reckon with the possibility that just because a recommendation algorithm doesn't match your (very unpopular) bias, does not mean that it's a "Propaganda Engine/arm", and then maybe should ask themselves who really is the one wanting to do propaganda.

TikTok shops, advertising, culture all are very capitalistic and I don't get any of these claims, nor has there ever been any proof outside of trust me bro from western establishment types. Their business model is very capitalistic, and they are very good at that game. They simply want to serve the most popular content to as many people as possible, sorry to those who's favorite content is off-putting and rude to most people (racists/misogynist/transphobic content). Just because TikTok does not want to serve that content, (and trust they still do), this does not make them a propaganda machine. It makes them not idiots at running a social media business... How much revenue does Parler, X, Truth Social have these days? TT makes 4-6x all those SM companies combined.

[_DeadFred_]

People say that Israel propped up Hamas in the past so not really that weird on a conceptual level.