Following his space-escapade, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has been brought hurtling back to Earth with a whopping €746 million fine for breaching European GDPR regulations. It’s good news because it’s always nice to see one of the Big Tech companies get their due, and it’s better because some of us weren’t sure GDPR was actually working.
Out of proportion…or is it?
Amazon of course deny any wrongdoing and also claim that the fine is way out of proportion. “There has been no data breach and no customer data has been exposed to any third party”. The tech giant intends to appeal the decision, especially given the seemingly wrong interpretation of the law.
GDPR laws state that fines imposed should not exceed 4% of a company’s revenue. Given Amazon’s reported earnings of approximately €18 billion in 2020, the fine imposed amounts to 4.2%. So, if applicable, the fine should actually be some €720 million instead. Which is still a pretty penny.
The fine is still way less than what Mr Bezos spent on his vanity space trip, which cost an estimated €4.6 billion. So, how’s that for comparison?
Do you think that GDPR is actually working or are data laws still too loose?
