topic Re: Another potential shock to Facebook - blocking them from becoming a Bank. in Industry News

Another potential shock to Facebook - blocking them from becoming a Bank.

Caute_cautim — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 03:48:02 GMT

Hi All

Interesting move from USA, https://itwire.com/technology-regulation/bid-to-block-big-tech-firms-from-offering-financial-services.html

It will be interesting to see what happens with this one.

Regards

Caute_cautim

Re: Another potential shock to Facebook - blocking them from becoming a Bank.

Shannon — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 05:38:32 GMT

It will definitely be a blow to Facebook if this does happen, but the article said

'The bill is likely to meet resistance from Republicans in the house and even if it passes the house, it would be difficult to get such a measure through the Senate.'

I'm not feeling very optimistic right now, particularly after Facebook's recent victory.

Re: Another potential shock to Facebook - blocking them from becoming a Bank.

Caute_cautim — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 05:42:51 GMT

@ShannonYes - well spotted, cannot get my hopes up - but another zero would do nicely though.

How can we go on rewarding the bad and let them get away with it?

Regards

Caute_cautim

Re: Another potential shock to Facebook - blocking them from becoming a Bank.

Shannon — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 06:09:25 GMT

@Caute_cautim wrote:
@ShannonYes - well spotted, cannot get my hopes up - but another zero would do nicely though.

How can we go on rewarding the bad and let them get away with it?

From my perspective, all this is just a game of monopoly --- and big players generally win. Let's analogize:

The highly profitable business of an influential person, 'Mr. X,' adversely affects the environment, but doesn't directly violate any laws. An environmental group moves in to get him to stop what he's doing, and the case goes to the courts. (In my country, seeing that happen at a snail's pace would be an improvement)

Now by the time there's any significant decision taken, years have gone by, and Mr. X has reaped the benefits --- albeit at the cost of the environment --- so there's little impact.

If someone were to simply blow up his factory, we'd see an immediate positive impact, though not for him.

Back to Facebook, the legal processes it's going through are not guaranteed to produce any positive results anytime soon. Getting its users' opinions to change will be a challenge, given the sheer number of users, the services Facebook offers, and the fact that not all care about privacy so much.

Similar to the conclusion of the analogy, it's more likely we'd see some results if, say, Facebook suddenly became the primary target of hacking groups...