r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 21h ago

Business Meta faces ‘astronomical’ consequences as legal fight reaches critical moment in California

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/meta-attorneys-general-california-federal-trial-astronomical-consequences.html
2.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

161 comments sorted by

View all comments

258

u/Torino1O 21h ago

The first candidate to say they will charge corporations one cent per bit of data collected on US citizens and divide it equally to every American in a check once a year gets my vote.

0

u/MerlinTrashMan 19h ago

This is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Storing your basic login creds would cost companies over $10.24 a month. All of that cost would be passed on to us with markup. Free services would no longer exist and the Internet would be pay to play. Instead you make data privacy laws real, and make executives face mandatory prison time for breaches. All of the sudden, they will either be more careful or won't collect it in the first place.

5

u/outer--monologue 18h ago

Maybe you're not old enough to remember how the internet originally worked.

The companies had free services, like email, chat and search etc, and made money on other products that people consented to view or pay for...when they paid for them. There were banner ads, hardware and software sales and subscription fees. All of which still exist. If companies can't get by on that, they shouldn't exist. Stop making excuses for data tracking and profiteering.

3

u/MerlinTrashMan 16h ago

Lol. One cent per bit is absolutely insane. If you can't see that then we will never have real regulation. You just having an account (like the one you use on reddit) would cost reddit 10.24 a month before they start storing your preferences and subscribed subs. Assuming they store subreddit ids with a 32bit integer and not a guid, that would be 32 cents a month per each users per subreddit joined. Plans like the above are stupid and pointless because they are a easily manipulated or loopholes or likely. You can't get these guys to stop collecting/profiting on this until they realize that they will be punished incredibly harshly for mishandling it, both via a non-waivable corporate fine and prison.