Eileen AJ Connelly for The New York Post:
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t let a little thing like a $5 billion fine spoil his weekend.
The Facebook founder hobnobbed with fellow billionaires at the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Idaho on Friday — also known as “Summer Camp for Billionaires,” as the Federal Trade Commission was slapping his company with the mega-penalty.
Zuckerberg, 35, who is worth a reported $62 billion, was able to console himself surrounded by fat cats like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Nike founder Phil Knight at the invite-only confab that draws top tech and media executives.
MacDailyNews Take: Not even a slap on the wrist. A $0 fine would have been as meaningful.
$5 billion fine / ~2 billion users = ~$2.50 per each user’s “privacy.”
Not bad.
He’s right to shrug it off.
As reported by Business Insider, the conversation according to SAI sources, went as follows.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don’t know why.
Zuck: They “trust me”
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
What will the government do with the money? They should invest in creating competition for facebook. Now THAT would mean something!
It seems some people don’t like free market competition.
It simply takes 3 Bil out of circulation, nothing more.
As a personal friend of Mark’s, and a shareholder, I think it’s outrageous. I told this to Trump myself in one of our regular phone calls, but as usual, he does what he wants. Bill Gates laughed. I told Steve J at his grave site, but there was no response from him, sadly.
Sorry, I don’t understand why a $5 billion usd fine is “meaningless”? It’s a huge amount and better than nothing, isn’t it?
Anyone who says 5 billion is nothing compared with 62 billion, does not know anyone with big money.
I think that Facebook and Google see “Ads” as a stepping stone. They basically are “extracting” money from these Fortune 500 companies for Ads that no one watches, or if you see the Ad, you yell “F*#^” because it interrupted your video . . . I think Zuckerberg views the Libra currency as a way to implement micropayments . . . When you look at how much money Facebook can earn through their own currency and micropayments – a $5 billion fine is insignificant, and yesterday’s news.
Tax deductible as well?
These sorts of fines are no different than billion $ damages that companies like Samsung are told to pay for deeply aping others’ designs. They go full force into the market with something that they know will ultimately be found to be shady at best and build up tens of billions in profits, only to shrug off the “fine” for their actions. But, that all said, the vast majority of FB users are dumb*%ks for giving up so much of their privacy with little or no thought to the ramifications. As in all aspects of life, we kind of reap what we sow.
How about instead of 5 billion, 60 days of blocking facebook worldwide, and 90 days for twitter. Wait, Trump would have a heart attack if twitter went down. AOC too…