Meta being fined $100k a day for personalized ads in Norway

SELECTstarFROMreddit@sh.itjust.works to Technology@lemmy.world – 1042 points –
Meta's behavioral ads banned in Norway on Facebook and Instagram
techcrunch.com
88

You are viewing a single comment

100k/day (36.5 million anually) is ~0.03% of Meta's 2022 profits (121 billion). That's not a fine, it's barely even a tax. If you make 50k/year profit and the government gave you a similar fine, they'd be taking $15 from you. That sounds more like bribe money for Norwegian politicians than a good faith attempt to protect their citizens.

I have a hard time believe they profited 121 billion dollars, when their 2022 gross revenue was 116 billion

I'm sure it's still a ridiculous amount of profit but that number seemed way to big at first glance so I had to check

I admittedly didn't look too hard for that 121bil figure, your source seems much better than the "Google it and grab the first number I see" approach I used. I see 91.36B gross profit for 2022 in your source. That makes the 36,500,000 fine ~0.04% of their profits instead or the 0.03% I got at first, equivalent to a $20 fine on 50k profit. I think the rest of what I said is still valid with the new numbers. Thanks for keeping me honest!

You confused revenue and profit. You must subtract expenses to calculate the profit. For example, if you buy something for $20 and sell it for $21, your revenue is $21, but your profit is only $1.

Facebook reported a profit of $39 billion in 2021 and $23 billion in 2022. This takes their expenses (salaries, offices, data centres, etc.) into account.