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Comment by lmkg | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact: Whatsapp (Facebook) was recently fined 75 million Euros for this practice under GDPR.

To be pedantic, that was one part of a 225-million-Euro fine. But that practice was specifically broken out as one of the line items, with a dollar amount attached.

And to be more pedantic, the fine wasn't for the practice itself. It was for failing to provide notice to the users whose contact info was harvested. In theory, this practice is acceptable under GDPR if the app immediately informs the user whose contact issue was harvested, and gives them an opportunity to reject.

The 225-million-euro fine is still the second-largest fine issued under GDPR, after Amazon's. The 75-million-euro line item were an individual fine, it would be the fourth-largest after (one of) Google's.

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Does that mean Facebook will stop doing it? I find that hard to believe. I doubt the EU understands Facebook's code or servers enough to judge if they're complying.

With 200+ million it sounds like they'll be able to hire a developer.

There definitely is technical competence within the EU and also within the burocratic institutions. The thing is just, that the people in charge only listen to them, when it is convenient.

As an American I have to wonder what it's like to have technical competence within your bureaucratic institutions. We can't even get bureaucratic competence, technical competence is completely out of the question.

That was my point. I know there are people with technical competence in the institutions, but not necessarily in the top ranks who make the decisions. And for you in the US - I think so, too. I remember the statement of resign of a guy, who had to to reorganize the IT of your military. He did sound technical competent - but he failed at unavoidable command structures which where not and he could not change them.

Oh come on folks. If they do nothing "look at them lazies". If they give fines "look at them incompetents". What exactly should they do to stop those practices and look good in the eyes of HN?

GDPR fines are insignificantly small for companies such as Facebook. They will just keep doing illegal things.

I agree, though I suspect fines for "repeat offenses" might be less easy to ignore.

Then keep fining them 200 million until they pay attention

That's true, but more often than not, the benefits that, say Facebook, gains from violating gdpr outweigh the fines they have to pay. Otherwise they would have stopped doing it after the first such fine, yet they keep doing it. Clearly it's paying off.

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