Re: Tiny mammoth
"The law allows a maximum fine proportional to the company's income (up to 4%)"
It's a little more nuanced than that.
Firstly it's 2% or 4% depending on the offence. There's also what you might call the flat rate limit - 20m or 2% whichever is greater, 40m or 40% whichever is greater.
By setting the initial fine at 50m seems to indicate that they're going straight into "or greater" numbers for a start. And it is for a start; fines are rarely set at anywhere near maximum for a first offence (this is their first offence under GDPR). If there are other Google cases working their way through the system then it seems likely that with a first offence already recorded and a fine of this magnitude issued fines are going to get bigger unless Google shows a willingness to comply.
Any business considering how to react to GDPR should be looking at this as a warning that the fines are going to be orders of magnitude bigger than in the past.
TL;DR It's a shot across the bows.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
