The Chinese are willing to bring the hammer down. The Americans and the Europeans, not so much. Draconian fines are theoretically possible for data privacy violations in the EU, California, and elsewhere in the West but are not imposed. In China, on the other hand, ride-hailing giant DiDi was hit with a $1.2 billion fine, close to the cap of 5% of annual revenue. Not that DiDi didn’t deserve it – regulators have identified 64 BILLION separate data collection violations.
Are you still looking at the puny fines handed out to everybody who is not a vilified American tech giant? Sooner or later, the regulators will start using their power. So you might as well get on top of any problematic data collection habits now.