Proposed bill would make monopolies pay “serious” fines

Proposed bill would make monopolies pay “serious” fines

5 years ago
Anonymous $ZuTig1gZkQ

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/proposed-bill-would-make-monopolies-pay-serious-fines/

The Federal Trade Commission's recent $5 billion settlement with Facebook largely drew two responses. One holds that $5 billion is objectively a large sum of money, while the other holds that, against Facebook's $55 billion 2018 revenue, the penalty amounts to mere drops in the ocean that will go completely unnoticed within the mammoth company.

Both takes are true: a fine can be both a very large amount of money and yet also not "enough." The FTC's ability to penalize businesses, though, is limited under existing law. And so a group of Democratic senators has introduced a bill that could change the law in order to let the FTC fine a bad actor big bucks.