this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Amazon saved children's voices recorded by Alexa even after parents asked for it to be deleted. Now it's paying a $25 million fine.::"For too long, Amazon has treated children's sensitive data as its own property," Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, said in a statement.

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[–] [email protected] 167 points 2 years ago (10 children)

This isn't a "fine" to Amazon. 25 million dollars is just the cost of business.

Make this 250 or 500 million and then... Maybe.... it's a fine.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Fuck it. Hit them with a couple of billion and THEN companies might stop being shitheads to basic human rights.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Totally agree. Facebook should have been absolutely crippled financially after influencing an election, but they get off scot free.

My idea is this:

Instead of a maximum fine being applied, you take a violation, lets say influencing an election, and you calculate how much of the corporations revenue came from that source. (i.e. Facebook messenger revenue would not count for election manipulation). Then, take a huge portion of that revenue (60%, 70%? [Depending on the violation]) and take that from their revenue. Who gives a shit if Facebook literally has to close down one of their services from lack of finances, thats what they get.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Why not 150%. At a bare minimum every single dollar brought in by illegal action deserves to be taken.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Yeah, something at or above 100% would be good. Even at 100% they're still losing the cost of doing business and getting zero revenue from it which is a poor business decision.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Agreed.

I only mentioned my range because then perhaps it would move to a different column in their budget.

25 million is nothing to Amazon.

A couple of billion might move it into an enterily new spreadsheet and maybe even precipitate a meeting to figure out who needs to be fired. Maybe.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Amazon makes between $53 million and $54 million an hour. This is the first Google search result, but even if it's exaggerated, 25 million doesn't even leave the tiniest mark... It's sad...

Lol, my life would be over, if i were to be fined 25 million

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago

This. Fines should not be fixed at a specific amount, but rather as a percentage of the total income of the company for a year. Just as laws are regulated according to technological advances, fines must also be regulated to truly impact companies and make them think twice before breaking the law.

[–] northendtrooper 8 points 2 years ago

Business fines should always be dealt in percentages.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Should have been 25% of profits. Percentage based systems work.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 years ago

25% of revenue, not profits. If it was profits then the fine would likely be $0 due to creative accounting.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago

Woah we got all that data for just $25m? Bargain.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 years ago (1 children)

$25 million? Jeff Bezos had so much money he could probably just tip that amount to whatever servant he has who polishes his head with an orbital buffer.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 years ago (1 children)

$25 million? That's ridiculously cheap.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

did jeff bezos downvote your comment?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago

I remember when people were trying to convince me that Alexa wasn’t recording every thing you said. Now here we are.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

That's like fining me $0.10

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You’re fined for 0.10$

Meet me a my office!

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I'm sure if it was a $2.5bn fine, they'd be much more careful about customer privacy going forwards...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yep, but it never will be a $2.5 billion fine.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Meta had been fined $1.3 billion this year by the European Union's GDPR. Before that Amazon was fined $781 million.

So 2.5 billion could happen, but not in the US obviously.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 years ago

$25 million dollars. That's just pocket change for Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Why even fine corporations at this point? Put the ones involved behind bars and shut the company down, liquidate their assets, and divide it to the victims when they do criminal shit.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If the death penalty exists and corps are people, why aren't companies being executed?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

If that actually were the punishment, you'd actually see companies behaving a lot less evil very quickly. A tiny fine that isn't even a blip in the companies pocket won't do anything.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah? What's that; 14 seconds of their profits?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Right. 25 mil per second of recording is more appropriate.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 years ago

25 million? They made $514 billion in net sales last year. 25mil is a fucking rounding error for them.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago

Fines mean legal for a price and it's only effective if it costs more to pay it than the profit made from it

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago

That fine should have to be 25 billion, not million. Then they'd actually learn a lesson.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

Like $25 million is laundry change for them. They will probably pay it in quarters.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

That's 0.0001x their 2022 profit or 0.01%. If I did my math correctly, it's about 58 minutes of profit.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

and to pay the US government $25 million within the next week

This is dumb. Not only is that pocket change to Amazon, none, absolutely zero dollars of that is going to the parents and kids affected. They’re the ones that asked for it to be deleted. They’re the ones that got recorded. NOT the US government.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

The article does say there are private lawsuits pending. I would guess that will include more payouts from amazon and money to the families.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

I wonder what they thought the device was going to do

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Ah, 25 million per child? Finally a fine big enough to make a tech company feel conseque--

[Touches earpiece] one moment, I'm getting an update--

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

yawn. $0.01 fine for Amazon. Cool

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Another reason not to have that shit in your house.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Fines like this should be calculated based on % of corporations net assets. Something like this, say 5-10%. That would at least get their attention.

Same with personal fines honestly, percentage of income or total wealth, depending on the crime.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Fuck these corporate oligarchs.

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