Google, Ireland, the EU, Run at Different Clock Speeds
September 30, 2026
Another dinobaby post. If there is an image, AI did it. I am Grandpa Arnold, not Grandma Moses.
I read “Google Fined More Than €400m by Irish Regulator Over Its Use of Location Data.” [Note: the €400m is about $460 million US dollars.] When I read stories like this, I have to admit that I can no longer differentiate the fines or the timelines or the violation. I know I am a dinobaby and not as attentive as I once was, but Google getting fined blur together. Google and the Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) seem to have different views of how online works in the Googleverse.
The write up (dated September 21, 2026) says:
The DPC inquiry was prompted by research by the Norwegian consumer agency in 2018 which suggested location data could reveal details such as religious beliefs (by tracking places of worship), political leanings (for example knowing a user has gone to demonstrations), health conditions (if a user has gone to hospital) and sexual orientation (if they have gone to certain bars). The DPC launched its inquiry six years ago and set out to find out whether Google had a valid legal basis for its use of location data. It found that Google users could have been unaware that their location was being used to influence them with adverts or to gather details about their health and interests.
Look at the dates: 2018 and 2020. It is now September 2026. From the point of view of the Norwegians and Irish, justice is moving forward. The Guardian article includes this passage:
Agustín Reyna, director general of BEUC, welcomed the ruling but said “the time needed to come to this conclusion is disproportionate with the seriousness of the infringement” arguing “late enforcement can be as harmful as no enforcement at all”. The DPC inquiry looked at “web and app activity”, “location history” and “location accuracy” between 25 May 2018 and 4 February 2020.
In my lectures, I am including references to what I call “clocks.” The idea is that certain systems have a relationship with their users that settle into a workflow cadence. Examples include going to the grocery store. The customer pushes a cart around, selects items, and then stands on a line to check out. At the grocery near our home, the clock at the grocery runs slightly slower than the clock of the customer. Customers speed through certain aisles. Customers jitter, jockey, and move around to select a check out that gets them out of the store more quickly (in theory). The mismatch does not put the grocery out of business, but the clock variance creates some tension between the store and the shopper.
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
What happens when a legal and bureaucratic procedures operates on a clock that is different from the clock used in a BAIT (a big AI technology) company like Google. The Guardian article calls attention to the amount of time required to figure out what Google was doing and then come up with a fine years later. How fast does the Google clock work? It is now operating on AI time. The Irish clock appears to operate on donkey-pulling-clock time. I find it amusing to try to visualize how the leadership of a BAIT company reacts to what appears to be a standard feature of the entire Google operation: Knowing as much as possible about users of its systems, hardware, and software. The reason of course is to better serve those users. I think there may be other motives as well.
Imagine a Google attorney, probably a recent graduate, being given the task of appealing this 2026 fine. The person has to figure out what the problem was (allegedly) in 2018, identify issues with the data and the case, and then come up with a response for what Google is doing in 2026 (assuming the young attorney has a clue about Google’s data operations via advertising, online services, and AI processing whatever is available to its omnivorous smart software.
Let’s assume that the young attorney throws herself into this problem and files an appeal on a specific issue. How long will it take for the DPC to move the case forward? It is probably going to be measured in months. Meanwhile, Google-type outfits continue to operate at AI time. Let’s assume Google loses on appeal or the young attorney wrangles a deal to negotiate the fine to a lower figure. As this legal issue moves forward, the leadership of Google finds that it is easier to leave it to legal and accounting to work out a deal. Any behavior changes are not on the radar of senior managers. The Google system is now has sufficient momentum to grind forward. With much of the data collection, parsing, processing, and leveraging happening in AI time, the notion of not having access to location is silly. One’s location can be obtained in a variety of means. Carrying ones mobile in a Faraday bag means that the battery will go dead, the user will have to take it out to charge it, and then turn it one. Bingo. Google has the location data plus any digital crumbs the user left behind using a laptop or taking some other action.
The court case and the fine are unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the operational mechanisms of the global Google system. Presumably the young attorney has figured out the appeal and negotiation process and concludes that nothing will come of it. The fine, while big by the standards of an employee at Taco Bell, means zero to Google.
In high school I learned about a Pyrrhic Victory. I wonder if the EU, the DPC, some Norwegians, and other fellow travelers have figured out that Google winds. The clock speed means that the case makes no more impact on the company than a small insect smashed against the hood of an AI controlled Waymo. Hey, work is work for the lawyers, bureaucrats, and researchers. Google just keeps speeding along. The company will promise to change even when it cannot. In fact, few in leadership may know that “change” was part of the settlement.
Different clocks.
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2026
You Keep Your Old PowerPoint Decks, Do You Not?
September 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. If there is an image, AI did it. I am Grandpa Arnold, not Grandma Moses.
Years ago I made the decision to post the PowerPoint decks or “slide shows” I used when I was giving talks two or three times a month. I put these on my personal Web site along with versions of articles I wrote. I put pre-publication fair copies of some of my search engine profiles on my Xenky.com Web site. I retired in 2012 or 2013. I don’t remember now. Every once in a while, I will look at a slide deck or call up a profile of a long-forgotten search engine just for kicks. No one else cares, a fact verifiable in the log data. If you are curious, content is available without charge at ArnoldIT and Xenky. I found this to be a hassle and no one on my team, except the rare Type A intern wanted to chase me down, get a slide deck, convert it to PDF format, and post it. I didn’t care. Now I am not sure if I have the slide decks I created between 2002 and 2026. I am not a librarian, and now I just don’t care. I don’t even have copies of my 14 books and monographs.
But some people and organizations keep their slide decks, rough drafts, meeting notes, and outputs from bouts of spreadsheet fever. I enjoyed reading “An Undisclosed Microsoft Presentation Is Now Central to a Multimillion-Dollar Antitrust Fight.” Yep, a slide deck, apparently a killer one. The Computerworld article states:
Central to this development is a historic, potentially damning internal “Second-Hand Software” (SHS) presentation, referred to in the consent order as a “known adverse document.” The specific content of the presentation has not yet been made public, but Microsoft has until October 31 to explain why it did not disclose the presentation earlier.
The idea is that Microsoft had a slide deck that explained subscriptions were the future. The resellers groused. Now the Softies have to dig out that previously undisclosed presentation. Why does someone in discovery hide documents? [a] Gee, our search system can’t find that PPTX file. [b] The dog at that USB drive [c] We are a giant company, and we can do in the UK what we do when the Department of Justice hassles us? [d] Oh, what slide deck? I don’t remember a slide deck [e] I think a contractor did some work but she is no longer with us.
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
Microsoft’s team is apparently not adept at information retrieval. The Computerworld story points out:
The more than 40 search terms include “SHS,” “antitrust,” “competition,” “ValueLicensing,” “used licenses,” “do nothing,” “competition,” “revenue,” and “discount licensing.” These documents cannot be designated “restricted” or “confidential,” according to the consent order. They must also be disclosed by November 30.
I thought that Microsoft had superior search systems. One of the systems is Fast Search & Transfer. Another is one variant of the AI technologies marketed under the “Copilot” brand. The court decided to help out the Softies by providing the list of terms.
The write up continues:
Under EU law, it is fully legal to resell perpetual pre-owned (“second hand”) software licenses; software makers cannot use their Terms of Service (ToS) to override this right. ValueLicensing specializes in this secondary market, re-selling licenses for products including Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. But the company alleges that Microsoft has stifled the supply of these pre-owned licenses in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA) comprising 27 European Union member and non-member countries. It says Microsoft abused its market dominance and entered into agreements that “prevented, restrained or distorted competition” via clauses restricting customers from reselling their Microsoft perpetual licenses in return for subscription service discounts.
Yep, subscriptions and forced cloud interaction make life difficult for those resellers.
The story includes this statement some of which originates from a mid tier consultancy:
CIOs should pay close attention to licensing “penalties” or inflated costs for running legacy software on third-party clouds, like AWS or GCP, versus Azure, he said. They should also evaluate the benefits of hybrid licensing strategies. Combining pre-owned perpetual licenses for static workloads with cloud subscriptions for dynamic workloads can yield significant cost savings compared to all-subscription models, Maisto [the consultant spokesperson] pointed out.
Those who are paying attention are the resellers. CEOs are not in this type of thought loop.
The UK court system is operating in a way different from the current US system. It is unlikely that a campaign contribution or a gold gift will alter the decision that emerges from this litigation.
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2026
AI and Lawyers: More Cases, More Fees. Hooray!
September 16, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Want proof of the value of AI? Look no further than Australian legal filings. Sure, AI hallucinates and outputs bogus information sometimes. Providing the wrong information causes harm and Australia’s legal dockets are seeing the outcome of bad AI advice. The Australian Broadcasting Company reports on this issue in their article: “Fair Work Commission Condemns ‘Plain Wrong’ AI Legal Advice As Cases With AI Litigants Surge.” The Fair Workplace Commission has seen their cases increase by 40% because of poor AI advice and as of October 20 potential litigants will need to disclose if they used AI.
Here are more numbers about the use of AI in Australia:
“Generative AI was in part responsible for a 40 per cent surge in its cases between 2023-24 and 2024-25.
40 per cent of surveyed cases involved a litigant using AI.
The use of AI was more concentrated among younger and self-represented litigants.
More than three-quarters of that cohort used ChatGPT and, of them, 60 per cent relied on the free version.
Non-English speakers were twice as likely to use AI than native speakers.”
Law makers in Australia did say AI was allowing potential litigants who would otherwise have been denied justice more readily access to information to aid in their case. However, they also denied if using AI was “inherently problematic.” To combat the poor usage of AI, the Fair Workplace Commission is making templates that people can copy and paste into AI bots to hopefully generate better and correct advice.
Australia doesn’t want to waste its courts backed up with cases that are just foolish AI nonsense. We don’t blame them for fighting back against AI, but we think legal eagles will find a way to keep those billings drifting upwards. LLMs are a plus, right?
Whitney Grace, September 16, 2026
Google: No Break Up Required… Because Google Is Just Special
September 14, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
On the flight back to my home from Washington, DC, I read “Google Won’t Have to Break Up Its Ad Tech Business, Judge Brinkema Rules.” Does this mean that Google is not a monopoly? Does this mean that Google is special? Does this mean that any company can adopt the business approach of Google? I thought about these questions as I waited for the lavish mid-flight snacks delivered by an empathetic, attentive flight attendant. “Attentive” and “attendant.” I get it, and those ersatz, chemical infused biscuits were absolutely delicious.
Back to the write up. I noted this passage:
Google had previously proposed a number of competitive fixes for its ads business. It promised to make real-time bid amounts for open web display ads sold through AdX available to rival ad servers. Google also said it will deprecate its Unified Pricing Rules and allow publishers to set different price floors for individual bidders in GAM. And it promised to not use “first look” and “last look” privileges to adjust its bids for open-web display ads, although, according to Google, it stopped doing so years ago.
I quite liked this statement: “it promised.” Promises in a legal matter are obviously acceptable. Imagine a criminal in the act, captured on video by several eye witnesses, and documented with a real time message posted on X.com. When that murderer says, “I promise. I won’t kill again,” do we believe this person?
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
The cited write up says:
During the trial’s remedy phase, she [the judge] pointed out that disrupting AdX or DFP might negatively impact the small publishers that currently use the latter for free. She added that any potential acquisition of AdX by another party (say, Microsoft, for example) could introduce new complications. She also suggested that requiring Google to implement behavioral fixes would be a quicker solution than mandating a breakup and enduring the yearslong appeals process that would come with it.
How does one interpret this possible ruling? Let me do a bit of airplane boredom imagining:
- No one cares to understand the business system Google has put in place for online advertising. Therefore, just allow Google to keep on doing Googley things. No change to the advertising factories Google operates.
- Google does a great job of explaining and reframing its business. Neither its attorneys, employees, the opposing attorneys, or most of the Google customers have any knowledge of Google’s business methods. Therefore, clear explanations are impossible. People just smile, nod, and use Google. Convenience wins.
- Advertisers just want to get leads and make sales. A bit of grumpiness is part of the ad game. Pay the bill and move on.
- Certain behaviors are now institutionalized. Period. Forget it.
Are these points valid? Of course not. I am delighted that American Airlines provides minimal customer care. Imagine eating something delicious and trying to think critically about Google promising to make changes. What’s worse? Airplane travel or the jumbled thinking of a legal proceeding related to the operation of a remarkable company.
I know my answer.
Stephen E Arnold, September 14, 2026
Thomson Reuters Launches Its Own LLM
September 14, 2026
Thomson Reuters is the large news, content, and technology company. It uses the word “trust” on many of its outputs. They firm now has it own smart large language model called… wait for it … Thomson. “Thomson Reuters Leverages Its World-Class Data Assets To Launch Its Own Frontier Model” controls this model, and it may reduce the firm’s need to hire lawyers to do certain lawyerly things like read cases, mark them up, and generate an annotation. My hunch is that non-lawyers at Thomson will give Thomson a spin in order to create Thomson style outputs. Is this too many Thomsons? Of course not. Lord Thomson of Fleet is thrilled with the name “Thomson.”
Instead of spending billions of dollars and waiting years to build infrastructure, Thomson Reuters used an open source foundation and invested $40 million to train its LLM on the most important information-centric task Thomson employees undertake. Because Thomson Reuters used open source software, Thomson’s hands have Thomson by the scruff of the neck. The undertaking appears to have sidestepped the costs incurred by some other AI pioneers.
Here is what makes Thomson different from other frontier models:
“Thomson starts from a strong open-source foundation. What makes it different is what happens next: state-of-the-art mid-training and post-training techniques, drawing on decades of authoritative content from Westlaw, Practical Law, Checkpoint, and Reuters, with hundreds of subject matter experts integrated from the design of training objectives through to the final evaluations…The model has been trained on less than 10% of Thomson Reuters content so far, and what comes next is not simply feeding it more data. It is continued discovery of new kinds of specialization and understanding, made possible only by building on decades of proprietary content and editorial expertise.”
Is Thomson a leader or a follower in AI? What will be Reed Elsevier’s response? What will the lawyers now employed to do the old-fashioned mark up react to having Thomson a click away on their computer screen? Will Thomson output information that makes the occasional error (just like real lawyers)?
None of these issues are important in the grand scheme of AI deployment. What’s important is [a] cost cutting, [b] efficiency, [c] marketing, and [d] showing subscribers that Thomson Reuters is definitely moving down the information highway with AI as a copilot (yeah, lame pun, but I will blame my dinobaby boss).
Whitney Grace, September 14, 2026
A Ratonalizing Goat: Durov Explains Life
September 3, 2026
We spotted a very Web3 presentation of Pavel Durov’s view of himself, Telegram, and his minor scrape in France. We provide a snapshot of this bleat in “GOAT Talk: Why the Police Pursue Telegram.” The uncertainty about Durov’s trial in France, the near miss in Alpha Compute’s Nasdaq delisting, and the somewhat disappointing “value” of the GRAM coin dog the Telegram operation. The story appears on our Telegram Notes blog.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2026
Googzilla: Scraping Our Data Is Bad, Unethical, and Illegal Too
September 3, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
It is now August 27, 2026, and I have better things to do than point out that the circular financing champion is buying a French-incubated start up for billions of dollars. I cannot waste my limited dinobaby energy on Meta’s “settlement” and attempt to call out the social media fellow travelers. Nor can I deal with yet another “My goodness, AI will kill us all” from a person who did fancy dancing in an anti-trust trial, embarrassed the “inventor” of Bob, and who seems to have bumped into a certain Epstein fellow with some enthusiasm or some type of “asm.”
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
I want to bring to your attention this article from SEO Roundtable: “Confirmed: Google Search Rolling Out google.com/goto Tracking Parameters.” The “seo” means let’s fiddle Google results so irrelevant hits turn up in old-fashioned Google search. That’s pretty much history. The SEO crowd is now turn to putting content in smart software to get those paying customers of SEO experts to put a company, product, name, or a factoid associated with a paying customer name. Great enhancement of the SEO relevance destroying machinery. Keep up the good work. This relevance vaporizer is called GEO or generative engine optimization. Tricks are good, right?
The write up surprised me. SEO Roundtable is pointing out that Google, possibly one of the greatest content scrapers ever devised, does not like it when people scrape Mother Google’s content. Imagine! The Great Scraper does not like scraping and SEO Roundtable is presenting content that sure looks like a college freshman’s essay about how to market bowling shoes.
The write up says:
Derek [the Nozzle wizard] added, “Google has been testing anti-bot measures that eliminate all client side links in favor of google. com/goto… server side redirects.” “The goto links can’t be decoded, so providers will have to follow the redirect links. While that works in small scale tests, Google seems likely to make that tough, since each SERP will have hundreds of links to decode,” he added.
I think that Google is making life a bit more difficult for the illegal, copyright violating people who are taking Google search results. How about encrypting the “/goto” pointer so reverse engineering the url is difficult for those who are not Google-grade engineers.
I want to highlight what I think is an interesting logical issue for Google to resolve; to wit: Google scrapes. When Google indexes content it is okay. When an outfit takes Google content, it is illegal, heinous, a violation of whatever laws Mother Google’s legal eagles can fly over the courthouse and drop on those who are taking Google’s search results.
From my point of view as an official 82-year-old dinobaby, the message is “fair use for Google, trespass for everyone else.” I understand, but for a company that used to toss around the word “logical”, Mother Google will have to bang on the “bots are doing this” and “this is a computational burden for Google.” I expect other arguments will be offered until the opposition just runs out of money, gives up, or reaches some sort of deal to just go away.
Net net: For many years, I have been putting this phrase in my writings: “Each year it is more and more difficult to locate on-point, germane information.” Buckle up for 2027 because mis-, dis-, and refor- will spice up information. The new line up is misinformation, disinformation, and reformation. Cool.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2026
Google: Will You Get the Ding You Wanted or a Thunk You Did Not?
August 31, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Social media jabber suggests that Meta’s trial is not going too well. Is it possible the Don Quixotes from U.S. have poked a hole in El Zucko’s armor? Maybe. I read “Ex-Google Engineer’s Conviction for Stealing AI Secrets Partially Overturned.” I might be wrong but that report suggests that Google may be dunked into the cold pool.
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
The write up says:
A federal judge on Thursday tossed part of the conviction of former Google software engineer Linwei Ding, who was found guilty earlier ?this year of stealing AI trade secrets from the U.S. tech ?giant to benefit two Chinese companies. U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled there was insufficient evidence Ding intended or knew his conduct would benefit the government of China, a ?requirement to convict him on seven counts of economic espionage. Chhabria said evidence ?supported the guilty verdict on the theft of trade secrets.
As a dinobaby, I believe Google assumed it had a clear win. A Chinese-type person, Chinese-type companies, and a Chinese-type recruitment effort. Bang! Guilty. Google win. Better than Google’s going to court over the future church founder Anthony Levandowski of Waymo, Otto, Uber, and Way of the Future.
But the cited Reuters’ article suggests that Google may not win. What? Google is not getting its way in the courtroom?
Let’s step back.
We have the Meta court losses and a possible zinger in the current litigation over online fancy dancing. Now we have an alleged espionage matter cast into doubt. These US incidents take place against the static BAIT (big AI tech) firms keep getting from the European Union. Outliers like India are getting in the push back action.
Several observations seem to be warranted:
- The “move fast and break things” era seems to be under some pressure. The BAIT lawyers may be first class, but so were some of the passengers on the Titanic. Have the technology shits hit some unexpected objects in the online waters?
- A tech bro named Chamath Palihapitiya wants the BAITs to respond to the citizen-induced rainstorms slowing construction of those whale-loving AI data centers. What? BAITs do what they want, and now a bunch of rag tag people living far from Woodside are preventing a corn field from sprouting racks filled with AI goodness? Incredible, right Mr. Palihapitiya?
- Within the BAIT world itself, signs of stress are showing. One firm wants to set up an international organization to do something about AI. Another AI company is taking investment money from another AI company in order to demonstrate growth. Does that sound familiar Nvidia?
If we look at the Google trial against the Chinese type person, it can be viewed as a problem created by Google’s legal eagles. In the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” meeting after the negative signal Reuters reported, the solution is obvious: Get better lawyers, appeal, and review our allegations and find another way to put the Chinese type under pressure. Will Google do this if its “pressure” throws water on some of the firm’s activities involving Alibaba? I don’t know.
Net net: After decades of doing exactly what big tech wants, these faint signals may be aberrations. On the other hand, maybe these are like flowers in the spring? Hopefully, no thunks.
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2026
The Meta Manifesto May Not Neutralize This Decision
August 31, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I did not read the Meta AI manifesto, a long discussion about artificial intelligence. To be direct, I did not read any third-party write ups about the Meta manifesto, and I had not previously “met a” manifesto I ignored immediately. I am not sure what the BAIT outfits think these documents will accomplish. I did change my meta filter to work through Gizmodo’s article “Meta and Other Tech Giants Must Face Thousands of Social Media Addiction Lawsuits, Court Declares.” My reaction: The legal eagles are partying down and for the foreseeable future. I asked Midjourney to create an image of legal eagles having fun in a restaurant.
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
The write up reported:
A U.S. Appeals court just dealt Meta a big blow in the company’s long fight against social media addiction lawsuits. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeals request from Meta, basically allowing the social media giant and its co-defendants TikTok-owner ByteDance, YouTube-owner Google and Snapchat-owner Snap to face more than 3,000 social media addiction lawsuits.
For decades, social media cheerleaders have emphasized the positive attributes of social media. Some folks disagree; namely, parent of young children who killed themselves after doom scrolling, being bullied, or convinced that they are not cool. Meta lost a previous trial. The Gizmodo story stated:
The appeals court didn’t necessarily strike down Meta’s argument relying on Section 230. Still, it did rule that the tech giant had acted prematurely and appealed too early, saying that Section 230 only offers a “defense against liability,” not immunity from being sued. That means Meta will have to face trial in the mounting pile of social media addiction cases, which are increasingly proving to be a considerable financial headache for the company. Meta spent $2.4 billion on litigation in the past quarter alone, according to its latest earnings report, with the bulk of those legal proceedings concerning youth social media addiction lawsuits. That number was reported before the tech giant was ordered by a New Mexico court last week to pay another $567 million—on top of a previous fine—which went into a fund meant to address the negative mental health impact Meta’s social media platforms have had on young users.
Why are the legal eagles squawking with effervescent joy? Easy:
- Meta will appeal
- The parties to the complaint against Meta will [a] appeal and [b] hire attorneys to help the existing attorneys
- Third-party groups will join in and file new lawsuits presenting new examples of harm.
How will this play out? I am not optimistic. The people challenging Meta are unlikely to have the money to deal with the flocks of attorneys BAIT outfits will use to delay and possibly get negative decisions overturned due to a procedural error. Money can purchases legal services that make fewer mistakes. At least, that is the assumption at some organizations.
Net net: Money wins, not the best man or woman.
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2026
Meta and a Mythical $1.4 Trillion in Fines. Ho Ho Ho
August 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Time to stop with the manifestos. Maybe spend less time explaining the confusion about helping ships in distress? Think about message in “Meta Faces a $1.4 Trillion Reckoning in Latest Trial Over Social Media Addiction.” Add that to the off-the-balance-sheet commitments for some smart software doo-dads, and that’s a lot of money.
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
The write up says:
While Meta has faced similar allegations in other trials this year, the impact of this trial could be especially significant. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey haven’t publicly disclosed how much they plan to seek. But Meta said in a court filing ahead of the trial that states were seeking penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, an amount it described as “outlandish.”
Who is picking on the estimable Mark Zuckerberg (or, more familiarly, “El Zucko”? The Engadget article states:
For Meta, the stakes are especially high because the company is currently facing thousands of other lawsuits that accuse it of harming users. Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have already ruled against Meta in high-profile trials that deal with similar issues. (Meta has said it will appeal in both cases.) Another loss could not only be a financial blow, it could give other lawsuits an easier path forward.
Following the standard big AI tech game plan, El Zucko’s legal and crisis communications professionals assert:
Meta believes that the states’ claims are unproven and the proposed penalties calculated incorrectly. “The State AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate.” The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification,” the spokesperson continued. “Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout. We stand by our record of creating strong protections for teens, and look forward to making our case in court.”
I wonder how the parents of a suicide allegedly bullied on a Meta property will respond to the word “outlandish”? I don’t want to speculate. You may wish to use your imagination.
Several observations:
- In the present legal environment, I think that the appeals, court decisions, and follow on legal appeals with stretch the resources of some of the parties to the matter. Online advertising is known to produce a flood of money. Some of those funds can be used to grind down the will, legal teams, and check writers’ enthusiasm before El Zucko writes a check.
- I am not a Facebook user. We do use a software script to post some of my Beyond Search stories, but I am not sure if anyone knows they are on the platform. I have been asked to check, but I just don’t care.
- Whatever happens in the US will be noticed by the legal professionals working in the European Union. What happens in the US will inform those professionals how to perceive El Zucko, his manifestos, his platform, and the interaction of his services with certain cohorts.
Net net: BAIT outfits and social media advertising services are likely to face increased pressure in the future. Of course, legal measures can be crushed systematically. I think there will be some people who want to dress up like Don Quixote and sally forth.
Stephen E Arnold, August 24, 2026
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