Did you know How Long Will Big Tech Giants Take to Pay Off $8.2 Billion in Fines?

 

According to new findings from a Swiss Privacy Firm Proton, big tech companies have around 2 weeks left to pay off their fines which they have accumulated through violating privacy and competition rules in 2024. The total payable fine is $8.2 billion and has to be paid within the next few days. The fines imposed on big tech companies in 2024 exceed the combined total of $3 billion from 2022 and 2023. This is not a big consequence that tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple are experiencing as it is just a cost of doing businesses at such large scales.

The company with the most fines in 2024 is Google once again which has to pay $2.9 billion in fines. Looking at the cash flow of the company after unavoidable expenses, Google can easily pay off its fine in three weeks of working. Followed by Google is Apple with a fine of $2.1 billion and it will only take a week of cash flow for Apple to pay off its fine. Microsoft, with a fine of $1.6 billion can also pay it within the same time period.

Meta, which is the parent company of platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, would only need two weeks of cash flow to pay off its $1.42 billion fine. The company with the lowest fines is Amazon with only $57 million which can easily be paid off by the company's earnings in a single day. according to Proton study. 

 The head of Public Policy at Proton, Jurgita Miseviciute, says that regulators need to think in big tech’s language because these kinds of penalties are nothing for these giants. There should be more serious enforcement and legislation which can help stop these anticompetitive practices of big tech companies. These platforms constantly violates users’ privacy and found guilty of antitrust practices in 2024. Google received a fine of $2.5 billion in Europe for abusing its dominance in the market by giving its own shopping recommendations in Google search results. Only two weeks are needed for the company to pay off this fine.

The smallest fine Google received was from South Korea ($2000) for collecting users’ data without their consent which can be paid off in seconds. Many tech firms are playing "give and take" with customers, by harvesting their personal data and providing them with their services. Why would these big companies care about fines and follow the rules when they can easily pay off the fine?