266
Uber hit with a nearly $1 billion fine for automatically deactivating drivers in Europe
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
266 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
87469 readers
3621 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'd say $1 billion is not inconsequential.
That's the issue - 1 billion sounds like a big enough number. Most people hear it and think "Hah! Just desserts!" but it's not. They make so much money that even 1 billion is something they can easily ignore. The average person has such a poor grasp on just how much money is being accumulated that its easy to fool them into thinking a fine is far more damaging to the company than it is.
For a company whose business model is based on breaking the rules, fighting tooth and nail to gain influence, and eventually just paying the fines, I'd image they forecast this and decided the risk/reward was worth it. It's just 2% of annual revenue.
From the article:
"This time around, the AP said that the 824.9 million euro fine was calculated as the maximum penalty that's derived from four percent of a company's worldwide annual turnover."
Annual turnover is revenue, so top line money, before taxes, expenses, etc. They profited a little over $10 billion last year, so a nearly $1 billion fine is a little less than 10% of their profit.
I wouldn't call it insignificant - as a percentage of profit, it's not bad. But when we're talking about billions, it's still probably not enough to get them to stop.
As long as it's profit, not revenue, even 50% is little.
Once it's revenue and they're in the red will the fine be more than a regular business expense.
9% of annual profit. Inconsequential.