[HN Gopher] Apple fined $8.5M for illegally collecting iPhone ow...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple fined $8.5M for illegally collecting iPhone owners' data for
ads
Author : nixcraft
Score : 267 points
Date : 2023-01-08 14:38 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
| readingnews wrote:
| Wait up, I am not sure what the company worth is now, I keep
| reading two or three _trillion_ dollars, so let me get this
| straight:
|
| Company valuation: 2*10^12
|
| Your fine for some wrongdoing: 8.5*10^6
|
| So, they were fined roughly 4.25*10^-6 (or 0.00000425) _of their
| worth_. This sounds like a pretty small fine. Not sure if that
| even stings, a little.
| robocat wrote:
| Equivalently every time you forget to pay for a parking ticket,
| and every other equivalent law infraction, you should be fined
| your total annual disposable income?
|
| Maybe with some punitive disincentive on top I guess. If you
| have a ten percent chance of being caught, then fine you 10
| years of your "profit" seems a good appropriation. Just make it
| a year's salary - that is a fair approximation that everyone
| would understand. You certainly would learn to pay more
| attention to the many thousands of minor laws you need to
| personally adhere to.
|
| Edit: I especially want to see some of those rich-ass software
| devs working for letters from ACRONYMS get taken down. I'm
| safe: I live in New Zealand and I can't easily work at a letter
| of an ACRONYM.
| [deleted]
| reachableceo wrote:
| I would wager they spend more than that a week globally on
| coffee and plastic ware in the cafeteria . Or other similar
| incidental expenses.
|
| This is nothing.
| boplicity wrote:
| Rant: I'm so sick of the Apple App store. It absolutely pales in
| comparison to app stores like Steam, Epic Games or GOG. On those
| stores, you can buy a license, and then use that license almost
| anywhere. (Except, of course, on Apple Devices.) These stores
| compete with eachother, so they also sometimes have very good
| deals. (Hello actually good free games from Epic.)
|
| On the horrible Apple App store, you buy a piece of software and
| you can _only_ use it on _some_ Apple devices. If a developer
| stops updating their software, odds are you 'll no longer be able
| to use the software at some point in the future.
|
| Even worse, most apps are listed as _free_ , but of course,
| they're not free. They charge you for them, but only in some way
| that is completely hidden to everyone who doesn't download and
| install the software. Either that, or they _are_ free, but you
| 're overwhelmed with huge numbers of ads.
|
| I've come to resent our overpowered iPad. I'd love to install
| games that I own on other devices, but Apple has chosen to make
| this impossible. That's extremely disrespectful to me, their
| customer. They sell me a device that is completely locked down.
| It's horrible, and in no way the dream of computing that almost
| everyone had when I was growing up.
| [deleted]
| jacquesm wrote:
| So stop buying their stuff. It's a simple as that. As long as
| everybody keeps buying it the ratchet will be tightened another
| couple of notches.
| amelius wrote:
| I stopped buying from them.
| [deleted]
| nakedrobot2 wrote:
| How do they come up with these silly fines?
| gigatexal wrote:
| Apple getting into ads is not what Steve would have wanted. And
| all teh "well wall st." responses can stop typing because Steve
| didn't give an f about wall street.
| andrew-ld wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34272298
| mrfox321 wrote:
| Just look at Apple's recent job postings. Here's one, but simple
| searching reveals the pattern:
|
| https://g.co/kgs/tV5rGG
|
| They need
|
| 1. Recommendation systems experience
|
| 2. Machine Learning
|
| 3. Auction theory
|
| 4. Ads pacing
|
| 5. ML / Reinforcement learning
|
| Gee, I wonder what they're scaling out...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| 31337Logic wrote:
| [flagged]
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Imagine the fine for robbing a bank was $100
| asah wrote:
| It's actually more like $8.50 fine...
|
| ($100B annual income vs $100K personal income)
| gruez wrote:
| When you rob a bank, you're presumably getting at least a few
| thousand dollars. If the fine were actually $100, then the ROI
| is on the order of 10x-100x. How much money do you think apple
| got for "illegally harvesting iPhone owners' data for targeted
| ads without proper consent"? Do you think apple made $85M to
| $850M from it?
| atonse wrote:
| What exactly did they do?? I'm very curious.
|
| I have this sick feeling that in the past year, Apple is
| experiencing a brain drain and again the assholes with the
| spreadsheets (the bozos as Steve Jobs called them) are showing up
| and starting to chip away at things like privacy or in-app
| purchases for an extra .5% of profit.
|
| My son was surprised to see an ad or in app purchase in an Apple
| Arcade game. But I still have to verify whether that's what he
| saw.
|
| But the rest of the games on the App Store are so disgustingly
| sly in how they prey on their users to buy more more more.
|
| And Tim Cook doesn't do anything while talking about curation.
| Where's the curation?
| gavanwilhite wrote:
| Yes, they do this! I called support and they agreed that it was
| in opposition to their website description of Apple Arcade, but
| that there was nothing they could do.
|
| It pops up on the top of the screen every time you open the
| game.
|
| They were very cagy about it, but their excuse seemed to be
| that it was up to the game publisher whether to include it, and
| that I should complain to them (even though it was sent as an
| Apple Arcade notification).
|
| https://imgur.com/a/KOYSyTm
| hutzlibu wrote:
| So it seems, there is a market right now, for quality adfree
| phones, since Apple has given up on that? Or rather they feel
| too secure in their entrenched space. I hope they are wrong
| about it.
| orangepanda wrote:
| > My son was surprised to see an ad or in app purchase in an
| Apple Arcade game.
|
| They probably call it "included promotions" instead of ads, and
| pretend it's okay.
| kaba0 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34301509
|
| It seems to be much less serious than the headline implies,
| as is common
| dmix wrote:
| I checked what "Apple's Personalized Advertising privacy
| setting" actually means and this is the data that is
| collected to target ads:
|
| - account information like name/address
|
| - app downloads and subscriptions in App Store
|
| - what news articles you looked at in Apple News/Stocks
|
| - podcasts/movies/books/etc you downloaded via iTunes/TV
|
| - which ads you clicked on previously
|
| https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-
| advertisin...
| harywilke wrote:
| "With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple's Personalized
| Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving
| users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to
| protect their information. That violates EU privacy law,
| according to the CNIL. It doesn't cross the Europe's GDPR,
| though; the violation falls under the more obscure ePrivacy
| Directive of 2002."
|
| They had the wrong default setting. They changed it after 14.6
| detourdog wrote:
| Apple failed to "obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS
| 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used
| for advertising purposes on their terminals," the CNIL said in
| a statement.
|
| Apple claims they were using a previously approved process and
| their search ads on the AppStore prioritizes user privacy and
| will appeal.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Tim is the chief bozo to be frank...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| have you interacted directly with him? (I have, and he was
| not a bozo.)
| atonse wrote:
| I think Tim seems like the type that would be a bozo but he
| is really admirable in that he recognizes what he's good at
| and what he isn't. And has been willing to change the
| leadership to find the right people.
|
| There have definitely been product missteps and the typical
| nickle and diming of storage but it hasn't seemed like the
| quality has suffered too much as you'd expect if he was a
| true bozo.
| w1nst0nsm1th wrote:
| From what I read about him, he's more like the supply chain
| guy.
| yreg wrote:
| I don't think so. Yes, he led Apple to become a $1T company,
| but making money doesn't make someone a bozo alone.
|
| If anything compromises Apple products, in 90% of cases it's
| Apple's design philosophy or (stubborn?) ideals. Not a push
| from the spreadsheet bozos.
|
| For better or worse, I think Tim managed to keep the product
| side of the company very close to what Steve wanted.
| jhickok wrote:
| One of the concerns I have, and I believe Steve shared, is
| the dilution of their offerings. I'm frankly having a hard
| time navigating their iPad and Mac offerings. It isn't
| clear where each of their products sit, and it's certainly
| going to be very confusing to non-enthusiasts who have the
| grit to swim thru it all. Similarly, someone explain the
| 13in Macbook Pro? Why is it still here and getting updates?
| It seems to me that they are just making all possible
| combinations of their products, and Steve _hated_ that.
| dmix wrote:
| iPhone 14 Pro Max sounds anti-Apple to me for some
| reason. Like a tamer version of "Mountain Dew Ultimate
| Extreme"
|
| I'm not sure personally what a better name scheme would
| be to differentiate it but "Pro" and "Max" together
| sounds funny.
| yreg wrote:
| I'm with you on that, but it's very far from how bad it
| could be - just take a look at the other computer
| manufacturers.
|
| And the trend of making the product lineup more
| convoluted doesn't seem to be steep (it happens slowly
| and over time), so I'm not too worried. It seems there is
| time to steer it back before it gets too ridiculous.
| ghaff wrote:
| It seems to be mostly a case of, as various product sets
| evolve, you sometimes end up with adjacent products that
| are probably too similar. This has happened with the
| MacBook Air and MacBook Pro at various times. In general,
| Apple seems a lot more guilty of being slow to upgrade
| niche segments (smaller laptops, high-end desktops,
| smaller phones) than the other way around.
| threeseed wrote:
| MKBHD perfectly describes Apple's product strategy and
| why it has been so profitable for them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XeDPwpIFs-I
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > My son was surprised to see an ad or in app purchase in an
| Apple Arcade game. But I still have to verify whether that's
| what he saw.
|
| What game was this? I assumed Apple Arcade games would not have
| the ability to do in app purchases.
| [deleted]
| kornhole wrote:
| This video by Mysk shows it in action.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JxvH80Rrcw
| [deleted]
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| I don't use Stocks or News and I don't use the App Store for
| discovery so I don't see ads. I am fully bought into the Apple
| ecosystem. The second I see an ad, I am dumping all of it.
|
| Obligatory Bill Hicks:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0
| falcolas wrote:
| Don't open settings then? They advertise for TV, drive, and
| arcade there all the time.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I really liked the George Carlin that came up after that one.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > The second I see an ad, I am dumping all of it.
|
| Where will you go?
| lucb1e wrote:
| Android?
|
| I'm surprised every time I see an ad somewhere.
| TrackerControl seems to be an accidentally fantastic ad
| blocker (I got it just to block trackers) and it's super rare
| that an app doesn't use one of the known ad networks. It
| probably also helps to use apps from F-Droid whenever
| possible, which is surprisingly often (most of my apps are
| from F-Droid, some are stock like camera, dialer, and home
| screen, and then there's a couple like Spotify and NS/DB that
| are required for valid digital national rail tickets and I
| unfortunately can't get outside of Google Play).
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Yeah, I'm wondering, too. Android is a lot worse by design.
|
| I would love to use a Linux phone, but my bank's 2FA doesn't
| support any.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Depending on your bank, Anbox or Waydroid may help you run
| your bank's app on your Linux device. Probably a no-go for
| most banks, but worth a shot to see if it'll work. You can
| just try it out on a Linux computer/VM first, no need to
| actually buy a Linux phone just to end up disappointed.
| sobkas wrote:
| > Depending on your bank, Anbox or Waydroid may help you
| run your bank's app on your Linux device. Probably a no-
| go for most banks, but worth a shot to see if it'll work.
| You can just try it out on a Linux computer/VM first, no
| need to actually buy a Linux phone just to end up
| disappointed.
|
| I use LineageOs and without Magisk magic I couldn't use
| contactless payments (still no Google Pay, but regional
| Blik contactless is good enough)
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Everyone's focussing on the small fine but the bigger story here
| is it's _Apple_. They 've gotten the reputation for being the
| user privacy company, for protecting you from ad companies like
| Google/Alphabet or Facebook. Turns out they're acting like
| another invasive ad company themselves. The fine may not be big
| but the symbolism of it is.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Eh, this is a massive false equivalence. Yeah, it'd be really
| preferable if Apple didn't do ads. They also are the hot dog
| stand of ad vendors; everyone else is way, way bigger.
|
| The difference is so obvious: Apple Maps doesn't even associate
| locations or directions to your Apple ID. Google stores your
| location at five minute intervals. The difference in privacy
| attitudes is _vast_.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This behavior is expected from Google. Not Apple.
| sebow wrote:
| You're right, but in the grand scheme of things whataboutism
| is irrelevant. As per some analysis in a paper of this on
| android & iOS (the name of which i don't recall, but can
| search for it), the main difference between the collection is
| not that big: Google collects more quantity whereas Apple
| collects every kind of data, but not as frequently.
|
| People talked as if Apple did not and would not ever do such
| things, which was obviously false. Both companies profit by
| the fact that we keep pointing fingers in this sadistic
| duopoly and not look at the actual issue of privacy. I wished
| people showed more interest when in was more "fashionable" to
| talk of such issues, but back when snowden/assange/smaller
| individuals did it, the discussion always ended up with ad
| homiminems and irrelevant points directed to the messenger.
| The only difference between back then & now are the
| perpetrators: it used to be the governments, nowadays is
| companies (and governments colluding with them, which is
| arguably worse as corporations cannot be as easily held
| accountable).
| [deleted]
| ericpauley wrote:
| An alternate interpretation might be that the laws are so
| strict and arcane than even Apple, who seems to be trying to do
| everything right, is fined.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Can we give a multi-national company worth billions of
| dollars with a staff dedicated to legal compliance a bit less
| benefit of the doubt?
|
| It seems like Apple clearly violated the policy it rightly
| should establish for any software on iOS. They deserve the
| penalty.
| ericpauley wrote:
| This was an opt-in issue in one OS component (albeit an
| important one) in one version that has since been fixed.
| For sure apple should not have let this happen, but I don't
| see this as indicative of some evil anti-privacy plot.
| Apple made a mistake and paid a fine for it.
| neon_electro wrote:
| We agree.
| mqus wrote:
| maybe strict but arcane? It's pretty much the same "law" that
| apple put facebook under: Make personalization of ads
| optional and turn it off by default or at least make it
| equally easy to opt out and opt in (=forced choice).
|
| And this "arcane rule" is pretty much 50% of everything you
| read about GDPR (heard of cookie dialogs? they are not just
| banners anymore due to GDPR). Hardly arcane to me.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > who seems to be trying to do everything right
|
| They chose to use tracking tokens in the first place. By
| default a computer does nothing, someone was tasked to write
| this. Apparently they did something wrong, maybe it was an
| honest mistake, but I find it a stretch to just assume or
| expect they are necessarily choosing what's best for users
| (and leaving money on the table) without more info than is
| public.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Reminds me of an EULA then.
| reustle wrote:
| > In 2021, the company made $3.05 billion from ads in the US, and
| that figure is expected to grow to $4.24 billion in 2022,
| according to Insider Intelligence.
| bestnameever wrote:
| Outside of the App Store, where does Apple display ads?
| ccouzens wrote:
| The laptop setup screens that push you to iCloud.
|
| The toast that tells you to use Safari when using another web
| browser.
| MikusR wrote:
| Settings.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| Apple News
| mabbo wrote:
| They have plans. Now that they've locked Google and Facebook
| out of all that app tracking data, they can make a killing
| off it.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Apple does not display ads in many places, but they make
| money by selling the data they collect to other advertisers.
| [deleted]
| rvz wrote:
| Pathetic fine. More like a tap on the wrist out of the millions
| Apple makes every day. Surely they are sorry and they won't do it
| again! /s
| curiousgal wrote:
| I'm always interested in knowing _how_ they got caught but there
| usually does not seem to be any information about that.
| JohnGB wrote:
| Wow, that's going to teach them a lesson! A whole $8.5M - That's
| literally only 23 minutes of 2022 revenue lost (I did the maths).
| I'm sure they will never do it again, despite the fact that they
| likely made way more than $8.5M from doing it.
|
| If we want companies to stop doing illegal things, then the
| punitive consequences need to be so high that they prioritise not
| doing it. If a person steals $100, they could spend a decent
| amount of time in jail for it. Time that is worth a lot more than
| then $100 benefit they received. Companies want all the benefits
| of being a "person", so let's apply the same principles to them.
| still_grokking wrote:
| It needs to hurt more than just costing the company money.
|
| Finally people from high management need to land in jail on a
| regular basis for the missteps of big companies. Because those
| people actually don't care if they loose money they don't own
| themself anyway.
| gtvwill wrote:
| ^^^this. Apple illegally collected data. How many kids did
| they just commit that crime against? Jail time for c-suite
| management needs to happen. This whole crime is the cost of
| doing business is gross af.
| null_object wrote:
| > Finally people from high management need to land in jail on
| a regular basis for the missteps of big companies
|
| Amazing number of people baying for prison time for this
| pretty trivial mis-step.
|
| As I said in another comment, just finished reading a book
| where one of the chapters was about the Diamond Alkali works
| near Newark, where executives knowingly covered-up the
| intentional leaking of dioxin (the most lethal chemical known
| to man - the smallest dose will cause cancer) for _decades._
|
| But people on HN want to put Apple employees in prison for
| some trivial, minor EU law contravention.
| still_grokking wrote:
| Something worth at least $8.5M is a minor trivial
| "misstep"?
|
| What do you need to do as a private person to get fined at
| least $8.5M? Kill somebody by accident? No, that does not
| cost so much usually (even if you would count all your time
| lost in jail).
|
| My proposal would be: Calculate the daily rate of an
| average Apple employee (this includes the poor people in
| some Chinese factories), divide the fine by that, and this
| will result in the days the responsible C-level staff gets
| jailed. This would be simple and _very effective_.
| simondotau wrote:
| > Something worth at least $8.5M is a minor trivial
| "misstep"?
|
| For a company with probably ten million affected
| customers within the relevant jurisdiction, yes. The fine
| itself categorises this matter as a trivial misstep.
|
| Also your logic is weird. You're using the assessed
| punishment as justification for why the assessed
| punishment is insufficient.
| null_object wrote:
| > this will result in the days the responsible C-level
| staff gets jailed. This would be simple and very
| effective.
|
| I really recommend you transfer your hatred and sense of
| injustice to companies that are _right at this moment_
| poisoning environments - even in the US - and actively
| covering-up chemical leaks, or the pollution of people's
| drink-water, or allowing workers to use carcinogens that
| executives deny are dangerous.
|
| Some pathetic technical contravention of a trivial rule
| by Apple here is not worth your energy and passionate
| hatred.
| gruez wrote:
| >That's literally only 23 minutes of 2022 revenue lost
|
| Right, because apple is a conglomerate that does much more than
| just serve ads.
|
| >despite the fact that they likely made way more than $8.5M
| from doing it.
|
| What makes you think that?
|
| > If a person steals $100, they could spend a decent amount of
| time in jail for it.
|
| Realistically speaking in most parts[1] of the US you won't get
| any jail time unless you're a repeat offender.
|
| [1] saying this as a hedge in case there's some crazy
| judge/sheriff somewhere that's bucking the trend.
| [deleted]
| daveguy wrote:
| It will cause more damage to their brand than $8.5M ... Apple
| has been positioning themselves as "privacy focused" for years.
| They're obviously still better than Google in this respect, but
| it will hurt them more than $8.5M.
| rendaw wrote:
| Repeated anti-privacy moves, like CSAM scanning, haven't
| affected public discourse yet. And I'd imagine that a small
| fine would instead convince people that it wasn't a serious
| violation.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| No, this will not make a noticeable dent.
|
| Apple's branding and marketing are too powerful for that to
| happen. An obscure court ruling matters to people on HN. To
| the average consumer, it never happened.
| still_grokking wrote:
| > They're obviously still better than Google
|
| Really? Google spies on their users. But everybody knows
| that.
|
| Apple lies to their users telling them they not spying on
| them despite doing exactly that.
|
| So who's more dishonest?
|
| (This question is independent from the question whether it's
| morally OK to spy on people in the first place.)
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > It will cause more damage to their brand than $8.5M
|
| You say that, but a non-negligble number of comments here are
| outright defending Apple saying "just a wrong default
| setting", "nothingburger", etc.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > They're obviously still better than Google in this respect
|
| Are they? Google is probably the most open company about what
| they collect and how they use it and I've never seen any
| evidence whatsoever that they ever sell you out ie. do more
| than simply link you to contextual ads.
|
| All their apps and services also ask for permission pretty
| explicitly.
| snupples wrote:
| That's always been Google's "problem".
|
| It seems like they bend over backwards to be open and
| precise about their data collection and the risks you incur
| by accepting it. And gives you tools to view and manage the
| data (at least some of it).
|
| Meanwhile everyone else is doing similar or worse, while
| just staying silent -- in Apple's case hypocritically
| seeming to position itself as a leader of the "privacy"
| movement, when it really appears to primarily be about
| Apple's privacy first, then yours (maybe).
|
| But how IS your privacy really better under Apple's control
| versus Google's? One could argue it's worse under Apple
| because you're left in a state of not knowing what they're
| collecting, only reading about violations in court
| judgments and such. Although it would be prudent in that
| case to just assume the worst, instead it seems we often
| prefer not knowing, and living in blissful ignorance.
| thrashh wrote:
| People really hate on Google but I don't think a lot of
| people separate what something or someone does from how
| they do it
|
| Google collects a lot of data but I know they're not going
| to sell it, they're not going to let it leak (probably at
| least -- their security engineering is on another level),
| and in all of their years, the only thing they've done is
| shown contextual ads or suggestions in extremely mundane
| places. They're also such an extremely slow moving ship so
| it makes them extremely predictable, which is the most
| critical requirement for trust
| simondotau wrote:
| Google doesn't need to sell your data to anyone else
| because they also run the business which can extract the
| most (legal) monetary value from your data.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| This. I have a home full of Google Home devices. I have
| been thinking about switching to Apple (a fairly expensive
| proposition given the payoff) but this sort of news makes
| me rethink the value prop of pouring more money into Apple
| products.
| fsflover wrote:
| You could probably consider switching to MyCroft instead.
| notatoad wrote:
| people like news stories that reinforce their perceptions,
| not news that tells them they're wrong. this isn't going to
| be widely reported on, because "you were wrong to like that
| company that everybody likes" isn't a nice story.
|
| if the fine was huge, it would be news. but this fine is an
| amount that's easily ignored, so it will be.
| atkailash wrote:
| [dead]
| robofanatic wrote:
| Who is held responsible if a company gets fined or sued? Does
| someone get fired?
| sobkas wrote:
| > Who is held responsible if a company gets fined or sued? Does
| someone get fired?
|
| In the past shareholders were loosing money because their
| shares lost some value. Then they could fire CEO/take actions
| to put some pain on people responsible. But now shares don't
| loose value or even gain it, because how absurdly small fines
| are. CEOs have golden parachutes and only people who get fired
| are nameless minions who were forced to do it. Everyone above
| is blameless because every decision is made by committee, so no
| single person is responsible for anything.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I think the only justification for the outrageously high pay
| CEOs get should be personal liability for corporate
| malfeasance. We should put CEOs in prison.
| null_object wrote:
| > We should put CEOs in prison
|
| So in an obscure settings toggle, in one version of iOS that
| was immediately fixed, some developer probably unknowingly
| set a toggle default to a setting that contravened an EU
| law... and you think Tim Cook _should go to prison??_
|
| I just finished reading a book where one of the chapters was
| about factories in north New York where the executives
| covered-up systematic leaking of dioxin into the local
| environment for _decades._
|
| But sure - Tim Cook should go to prison to appease your Apple
| hatred.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I'm responding from an iPhone, as it happens. I'm not super
| fond of Apple, but there are far worse actors out there.
|
| This specific case may not warrant prison, but CEOs are in
| a problematic space: They get massively well paid to make
| decisions that they suffer no ill effects for. They reap
| the rewards of success but do not face any repercussions if
| they do something wrong. They won't get fired, and they
| won't face penalty for illegal actions. Even if they make a
| decision that hurts the business financially, it tends to
| be other employees who get let go.
|
| We should hold CEOs personally liable for the violations of
| the law of their companies, because it's the best way to
| ensure CEOs are motivated to ensure their companies behave
| legally, not just profitably.
| pocketarc wrote:
| CEOs being held personally liable might not fix anything
| - one goes to jail, the board hires the next. And before
| you say "CEOs just won't agree to do risky things", if
| they won't, they get fired, and some other CEO will. Same
| as what happens with programmers that refuse to do
| unethical work. They'll just get replaced.
|
| The company goes on as normal. The issue is harder to
| solve than "just arrest the CEO". But I'd like to see it
| solved, too.
| andry_ad wrote:
| Did they make only $8.5mil? I doubt. Why not fine them for their
| profit? At this point, fines like this are treated as expenses.
| Someone wrote:
| It's such a small amount because it's a small infringement
| (incorrect default for a privacy-related setting that was
| corrected, I guess fairly rapidly because of the height of the
| fine)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Exactly. "Illegal with a fine" is "Legal for a price." If the
| fine is less than the profit, then it's just another cost of
| doing business.
|
| Edit: What's controversial about this statement? It's patently
| obvious, especially when you factor in the odds that your
| behavior will go unnoticed or unprosecuted. Do you people think
| I'm _advocating_ this?!
| gtvwill wrote:
| Remember kids. If the punishment is a fine not jail time it's
| only a law for the poor.
| getToTheChopin wrote:
| The fine should be equivalent to profit plus a hefty penalty
| on top of that. Other wise there's no dis-incentive against
| repeat behaviour.
| null_object wrote:
| > The fine should be equivalent to profit plus a hefty
| penalty on top of that.
|
| So this was a toggle in an obscure preferences setting
| toggled incorrectly and therefore a minor infringement of
| EU law - but you want the court to fine Apple _their entire
| profit?_ plus some random extra amount?
|
| Wow. Aside from this being completely stupid to anyone who
| doesn't share your irrational level of Apple hatred, how
| would you deal with a really serious offense?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| They should be fined the profit that they made from the
| feature. _All_ of it, plus an additional percentage as
| punitive damage. Nobody said they should have their
| entire annual profit garnished, their corporate charter
| revoked, their CEO arrested, or their headquarters raided
| by the Wagner Group. Sheesh.
|
| The problem is that the threatened fine is nowhere near
| the anticipated profit. So there is a rational incentive
| to ignore the law.
| twblalock wrote:
| > Nobody said they should have their entire annual profit
| garnished, their corporate charter revoked, their CEO
| arrested, or their headquarters raided by the Wagner
| Group. Sheesh.
|
| Read the other comments here and you will see a number of
| people saying those things should happen (ok maybe not
| the one about the Wagner group...).
| nipponese wrote:
| > Apple failed to "obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS
| 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used
| for advertising purposes on their terminals"
|
| Why is it so specific to that dot version?
| nipponese wrote:
| Ok, I rtfa...
|
| >With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple's Personalized
| Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving
| users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to
| protect their information.
|
| >The newer versions of the iPhone operating system corrected
| the problem, presenting users with a prompt before the
| advertising data was collected.
|
| So they fixed it without government pressure or not?
| maddynator wrote:
| lol that's like saying the fine for speeding is $.2
| ttoinou wrote:
| It's for the french market
| pensatoio wrote:
| This is a nothingburger. I'm surprised to see such shallow
| responses here.
|
| A giant company made a small regulatory misstep in one country.
| Laws change constantly, missteps likely happen all the time. It's
| a tiny fine for a small mistake.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| To all down voters and apple fanatics .
|
| Told ya 7 years ago :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10303190
|
| "Think different" is just a slogan
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| (2021)
| dang wrote:
| Article looks recent to me
| Proven wrote:
| [dead]
| fmajid wrote:
| Any firm making more than zero in advertising revenue is
| automatically untrustworthy when it comes to privacy and data
| collection. Apple is no exception, and their stance is more
| hypocritical than most.
| [deleted]
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