Re:Facebook is not equipped to stop the spread of authoritar...
by Pyxl101 on Monday December 24, 2018 @04:20PM
(#18754325)
> You could split off the ad selling wing from the rest of it for a start.
Normally when businesses are split up, they are broken into multiple pieces that each have their own revenue and are viable standalone businesses.
In this case, the ad-selling part of Facebook is the entire business as far as financials are concerned. It's the only material source of revenue for Facebook. If you were to split the ad-selling wing from Facebook, then the "remaining part" would have no revenue. A regulator action along these lines is tantamount to crippling or shutting down the business.
For comparison, Microsoft reports earnings from many separate lines of business including Windows OEM, Office, Office 365, Enterprise Services, LinkedIn, Azure, server products, Gaming, etc. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2018-Q3...
Normally when businesses are split up, they are broken into multiple pieces that each have their own revenue and are viable standalone businesses.
In this case, the ad-selling part of Facebook is the entire business as far as financials are concerned. It's the only material source of revenue for Facebook. If you were to split the ad-selling wing from Facebook, then the "remaining part" would have no revenue. A regulator action along these lines is tantamount to crippling or shutting down the business.
Source: Facebook Q3 2018 earnings show that the only material revenue is advertising at $13.5 billion (Q3 2018): https://investor.fb.com/investor-events/event-details/2018/F...
For comparison, Microsoft reports earnings from many separate lines of business including Windows OEM, Office, Office 365, Enterprise Services, LinkedIn, Azure, server products, Gaming, etc. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2018-Q3...