South Korea’s privacy watchdog has fined Meta 21.6 billion won for illegally collecting Facebook users’ sensitive personal information, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers for targeted advertisements.
Wow! 15 whole million! That’ll teach em.
People really need to learn that fines which are not punitive break the social contract and turn the gov/regulator into a criminal co-conspirator engaging in racketeering — merely strong-arming its share of the proceeds, no better than the mob.
I wonder if shutting them down for a period of time would be a better punishment. They might feel it more if they can’t collect data and advertise for a week, month, whatever. And that might also have a side effect of people not going back.
Although I agree with the sentiment - the article mentions that it’s “only” regarding about 1 mil people. (Probably South Korean users)
So it’s still a $15 fine per violation. Could have been much higher, sure, but I don’t know if that’s a good return of investment for Facebook.
Maybe this case sets an example for other countries or regulatory bodies to start issuing fines to Facebook as well