Tech Giants Dodge Fines: The Big Four Unpaid in Ireland, Luxembourg
By Pierre Herubel
Tech giants such as Meta, TikTok, Amazon, Google, and Apple have been slapped with hefty fines for various infractions, but it seems they are in no rush to pay up.
According to Ireland’s data regulator, Meta has yet to pay any of the two billion euros ($2.2 billion) in fines issued since last September. Similarly, TikTok also owes hundreds of millions in fines.
Amazon is currently appealing against a 746 million euro fine from 2021, as confirmed by Luxembourg’s data regulator to AFP. Google is also disputing EU fines worth over eight billion euros for abusing its market position between 2017 and 2019.
On the other hand, Apple has been battling against a French antitrust fine of 1.1 billion euros and an order to pay 13 billion euros in taxes to Ireland for years.
It’s not just the big tech giants that are failing to pay their fines. 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.
Critics argue that simply fining tech companies does not put an end to their bad behavior and suggest that more drastic action is needed.
Margarida Silva, a researcher at Dutch NGO the Centre for Research on Multinationals, pointed out that tech firms have long reveled in their reputation for “disruption”. She noted that “Not paying the fines fits in with the way we’ve seen big tech companies challenge pretty much any enforcement of rules against them.”
While this behavior sets tech companies apart from other industries, lawyer Romain Rard emphasized that it’s common sense for firms to appeal big penalties. But there have been notable successes for the companies, with chip firms Intel and Qualcomm recently having billion-dollar EU antitrust fines overturned or dramatically reduced on appeal.
In 2019, Facebook paid a record $5 billion fine to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, while Alibaba immediately paid a record almost $3 billion fine to Chinese regulators in 2021.
Critics argue that these companies are simply too wealthy for financial penalties to have much impact and that there is uneven application of the rules.
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. “With the vast majority of these investigations that we’ve finalized, whilst the fines tend to generate the most publicity, we have also imposed corrective measures,” he said, highlighting an investigation into Instagram for their handling of children’s data.
Activists agree that fines can only be a part of the solution. Silva argued that rather than fiddling with financial penalties, it was time for competition regulators to step up and halt future takeovers and mergers in the sector, potentially even breaking up the companies.
“The problem of Meta would be entirely different if it hadn’t been allowed to buy Instagram and WhatsApp,” she said.
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