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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNew Delhi: <\/b><\/p>\n
Rarely a month goes by without big tech companies getting fined for price fixing, squashing competitors or misusing data, but it can take years before they pay a penny.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s data regulator confirmed to AFP that Meta has not paid any of the two billion euros ($2.2 billion) in fines issued since last September. TikTok also owes hundreds of millions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amazon is still appealing against a 746 million euro fine from 2021, Luxembourg’s data regulator told AFP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Google is still disputing EU fines worth more than eight billion euros for abusing its market position between 2017 and 2019.<\/p>\n
Apple has fought for years against a French antitrust fine of 1.1 billion euros and an order to pay 13 billion euros of tax to Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The problem is constant, global and involves tech companies of all sizes, not just the big four.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This week Australia confirmed that X (formerly Twitter) had not paid a fine imposed for failing to outline its plans to stamp out content depicting child sexual abuse — though X is now counter-suing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Critics say fining tech companies does not stop their bad behaviour and it is time for more drastic action.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Margarida Silva, a researcher at Dutch NGO the Centre for Research on Multinationals, pointed out that tech firms have long revelled in their reputation for “disruption”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Not paying the fines fits in with the way we’ve seen big tech companies challenge pretty much any enforcement of rules against them,” said Silva.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Even if the company ultimately loses, by that point they will have dragged the administration through years and years of expenditure.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
This sets tech apart from industries like finance, she argued, where there is still an incentive to pay to reassure the public and investors.<\/p>\n
But Romain Rard, a lawyer at Gide Loyrette Nouel in Paris, said it was common sense that firms would look to appeal big penalties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s not as if companies can just ignore the fine, challenge decisions and hope for the best that they can get away without having to pay anything,” he told AFP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And there have been notable successes for the companies — chip firms Intel and Qualcomm have both recently had billion-dollar EU antitrust fines overturned or dramatically reduced on appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Europe’s system is different to jurisdictions like China or the United States, where fines often come at the end of a lengthy process and are announced as settlements.<\/p>\n
In 2019, Facebook paid a record $5 billion fine to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.<\/p>\n
And e-commerce giant Alibaba told investors in 2021 it immediately paid a record almost $3 billion fine to Chinese regulators in 2021.<\/p>\n
Activists argue that these companies are simply too rich for financial penalties to have much impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Austrian lawyer Max Schrems, who has campaigned vigorously for data rights in Europe, said the issue was exacerbated by uneven application of the rules.<\/p>\n
The Irish Data Protection Commission, he said, allowed the companies too much leeway with their appeals processes and issued fines that were far too small.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with AFP, Ireland’s deputy data protection commissioner Graham Doyle defended his office’s record and said fines were only one part of the story.<\/p>\n
“With the vast majority of these investigations that we’ve finalised, whilst the fines tend to generate the most publicity, we have also imposed corrective measures,” he said.<\/p>\n
He highlighted an investigation into Instagram for their handling of children’s data.<\/p>\n
A 405 million euro fine is currently under appeal, but Doyle stressed that the platform had already fixed the initial problem.<\/p>\n
Activists agree that fines can only be a part of the solution.<\/p>\n
Silva argued that rather than noodling around with financial penalties, it was time for competition regulators to step up.<\/p>\n
She urged them to halt future takeovers and mergers in the sector and undo the damage of the past, potentially even breaking up the companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The problem of Meta would be entirely different if it hadn’t been allowed to buy Instagram and WhatsApp,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AFP has asked Meta for a response.<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n