Rarely a month goes by without big tech companies getting fined for price fixing, squashing competitors or misusing data, but it can take years before they pay a penny.

Ireland’s data regulator confirmed to AFP that Meta has not paid any of the two billion euros ($2.2 billion) in fines issued since last September. TikTok also owes hundreds of millions.

Amazon is still appealing against a 746 million euro fine from 2021, Luxembourg’s data regulator told AFP.

Google is still disputing EU fines worth more than eight billion euros for abusing its market position between 2017 and 2019.

Apple has fought for years against a French antitrust fine of 1.1 billion euros and an order to pay 13 billion euros of tax to Ireland.

The problem is constant, global and involves tech companies of all sizes, not just the big four.

This week Australia confirmed that X (formerly Twitter) had not paid a fine imposed for failing to outline its plans to stamp out content depicting child sexual abuse — though X is […]