noyb win: French electronics retailer Fnac Darty fined €7M | Hacker News Reader

noyb win: French electronics retailer Fnac Darty fined €7M

noyb.eu

65 pointslatexr7 comments

I have always had horrible experiences buying from FNAC. I avoid them at all costs. They often apply pressure on the customer into buying an insurance for their product which is very difficult to cancel.

This is low on details and you have to dig through the decision, which itself redacts out crucial details on revenue of the companies being fined within the FNAC - Darty group. Tldr is Fnac saying: "sure we have a 2025 revenue in excess of 10 B€ but we're really not in great financial health so please don't fine us too much". Since a fine could be 2% of revenue, ie 200M€ max here, to walk away with a 7M€ fine is a very good outcome for FNAC. I am unsure how much value they derived from tracking this data, but it could well be in excess of the amount of the fine. So probably not very dissuasive all things considered.

> So probably not very dissuasive all things considered.

The current fine isn’t a fixed value that’ll just be applied every time. As per the article:

> In case of non-compliance with the decision, Fnac Darty faces a daily penalty of €10,000.

And if they do it again, that is very likely to be taken into consideration into the next fine (or other actions).

In other words, it may not be sufficiently punitive but that doesn’t mean it won’t be dissuasive for them to continue. But sure, if you think they should’ve been fined more (and I agree), consider donating to noyb so they have the resources to fight more of these cases harder.

https://noyb.eu/en/support

If tech company revenue is any indication, 3,650,000/yr to be able to access all your users' browsing history could be a bargain. The fine is a joke.

> Since a fine could be 2% of revenue, ie 200M€ max here

Could be in theory, but has it ever been? I think about the biggest was a 1.2bn fine on Meta by the Irish regulator, but that's only about 0.5% revenue.

EDIT: Oh, actually, looks like Uber was fined close to 2% by the Dutch regulator recently.

FNAC is everywhere and is just terrible all around. Expensive. Very weird selection. Always pushy idiots trying to get you to buy anything at all.

Darty mathaf*kers

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