And when selling access to user profile data is their entire value-add over any other given ad network AND rando-ass companies (which CA definitely was) can pay for data that Facebook told users was private: there is no untangling it from revenue from companies that didn't take advantage of that abuse of privacy, there is just what companies we know for sure and what companies could have.
Again, the significance of the fine is relative to the offense, not the entity. We also don’t fine Mark Zuckerberg 10MM for being late (AGAIN) for paying parking tickets.
Separately a 4x, a 20 billion dollar, fine still wouldn't cripple them.
Also I'm actually strongly for fining Zuckerberg personally 10mm for his personal traffic violations because the point of fines is punishment and deterrence and thus should be scaled to the individual.
Also this behavior is inextricable from their overall revenue.
Also also are we back to should as opposed to the FTC's legal authority? I think it should be enough to change the entire culture of Facebook because selling user data is their business model and so anything short of changing the entire culture of Facebook will just result in selling more and more user data as soon as no one is looking. I think it should be enough to prevent Facebook from not just repeating current behavior but to prevent them from coming up with functionally identical but legally distinct behavior. I think it should be enough that Facebook management starts playing whack-a-mole with unethical behavior before the government has to play it after a decade of damage.
I think there's some blurriness here because people seem to believe that the violation FTC is pursuing had something to do with Facebook's whole business. That is not my understanding. As I understand it, what set FTC off here was the pattern of violations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook partners were given more access to user profile data than users expected or would have consented to. That's bad! But it is hard to argue, knowing a little bit about Facebook's business, that those violations were a major component of Facebook's revenue. Thus: Facebook's revenue is not the figure of interest in deriving a fine.