Wow… Google fined a whopping $68 MILLION DOLLARS for eavesdropping on people’s spoken conversations. That’ll teach them! It’s going to take Google a whole hour and a half to make that money back. I guess they won’t be pulling shit like this anymore after feeling that sort of pain. We really showed ‘em this time, eh? https://mastodon.social/@JulianOliver/115998148761323898 https://mastodon.social/@JulianOliver/115998148761323898
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@aral It's a voluntary settlement, not a fine, and Google hasn't been found to do, or admitted to do, what has been claimed.
RE: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116000462944591897
@aral Alphabet ran 230 billion profit in the period septebmer 2024-september 2025. So a 68 million fine scaled back to my yearly income (let's pretend all my income is profit) would mean a fine of about 15 dollars.
It's meaningless. That's not a fine, that's a very low fee for being allowed to ignore the law. Until these fines are calculated as a percentage of the revenue ( not profit!), nothing will change.
Well said. Demand our journalists write headlines with “percentage of gross/net profits” or, like you use, “days/hours to recoup”
Raw “amount paid” is largely meaningless at the scale at which these companies operate
@aral Slight correction from the article: it's a class action lawsuit settlement, not a fine, so no court proof or Gov punishment involved. I still don't trust google not to do eavesdrop though.
@aral they don't even pay these fines. https://todon.nl/@prolrage/113113105176517385
@aral I can't tell if it's sarcasm, but that's just a slap in their wrists. They'll continue spying on people anyway, because as I always say that crimes are legal if there's money involved (a.k.a fines).
Which is why we need criminal liability for executives of companies that engage in illegal practices.
@aral And if it pans like the Apple lawsuit, the affected users can look forward to google buying them a coffee in compensation.
big brain 🧠: change the “m” to a “b”
Galaxy brain ✨🧠✨: make it an antitrust violation for the advertising company to also sell hardware that can eavesdrop on you in order to show you more ads
