Apparently it’s just double the annual profits – as a private person, you can easily end up in prison for two years for facilitating the kidnapping of someone, I don’t see why a company shouldn’t “lose out” on two years for facilitating that kidnapping, let alone all the other issues mentioned in the article.
Of course, ideally executives and shareholders would be imprisoned, but one can only wish…
I don't see how $5.2b is justifiable in this case.
(This is of course besides the whole issue of whether or not people should be forced to divulge things like their phone numbers to government in the first place...)
Imagine the uproar if Toyota had not concealed safety defects but was selling cars to ISIS operating somewhere in the United States despite an explicit ban to stop doing that.
(Naturally, but whether or not the law is just/fair/appropriate is irrelevant to the question of whether a violation of that law carries an acceptable fine, in particular when the comparison to natural persons is easily available.)