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Cost of doing business

Meta, the parent company of Facebook had been ordered to pay EU 1,2 billion euros fine for not respecting EU privacy regulations. This is not the first time they, or other US based companies have been fined for such practices, but it's the biggest one time payment so far.

These companies don't really care about such fines. They are not big enough. Recently there was some economist saying that never has any company been fined for illegal activity with more than what they profited from breaking the law. So those fines are just a cost, a tax collected by public entities to allow them doing business on their regions.

Companies don't care. It's just money and as long as the fine don't exceed the profits why abide by the rules. It's just like when you're rich enough that you can park wherever you want. The parking fines jusr become (a slightly more expensive) parking fees.

It's not like EU wouldn't want those companies to operate here. That's why they are not going to go overboard with the fines. They just want their own share from the profits. If they ask too much the companies will threaten to close their business in here.