Opinion | Put Another Zero on Facebook’s Fine. Then We Can Talk.

How can I describe the fine of between $3 billion and $5 billion that Facebook is likely to pay to the Federal Trade Commission — which will doubtlessly be touted as its largest ever — to settle the government’s inquiry into what the social networking giant called “our platform and user data practices”?

How about: It’s a parking ticket. Not a speeding ticket. Not a DUI — or a DUI(P), data under the influence of Putin. A parking ticket.

To be clear, $5 billion is a lot of money. A lot of dough, clams, loot, lettuce, simoleons. But with apologies to that pissed-off shark in “Jaws,” they’re going to need a bigger fine if they actually want to stop Facebook from violating its users’ privacy.

[Kara Swisher will answer your questions about this column on Twitter on Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern: @KaraSwisher.]

Back in 2011, with I’m-sorrys all around, Facebook signed a consent decree with the F.T.C. around a different set of data abuse issues. This new fine presumably will cover all of the fresh I’m-sorrys since then, for the various and sundry violations that the company has committed over the last several years, including the mistakes the company made in not seeing and then not quickly plugging the epic Cambridge Analytica data leak.

While there are some states waging legal challenges against Facebook, as well as other federal agencies poking around, the F.T.C. is the big dog here. So for that money, Facebook will essentially get its sloppy slate wiped clean.

That’s why its stock rose significantly after the news of the potential fine, leaping upward after an earnings report that showed strong increases in users and advertising revenue. From lows of $123 a share, Facebook’s stock is now flirting with $200. In other words, the privacy concerns raised loudly by politicians and the media have not hurt Facebook’s growth.

With $23 billion in cash on hand, Facebook will see a $5 billion fine as simply the cost of doing business. Needless to say, this is not how fines are supposed to work. Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at N.Y.U. and my co-host on the podcast Pivot, calls it the “algebra of deterrence,” by which he means a price and a punishment that makes certain you will not do a bad thing again.

Five billion dollars is not that price. “Put another zero on it and then we can start talking,” said Mr. Galloway this week.

At least the moribund F.T.C. is showing some semblance of life. For too long it has refused to look hard at tech and do anything about its growing power. Hello, Google search dominance?

As to the possibility that new regulations will follow the fine, Wall Street doesn’t seem worried. Mark Zuckerberg reassured investors expertly on that issue this week by noting, “I understand that any regulation may hurt our business, but I think it is necessary.”

That’s what I call an Oh-no-don’t-throw-me-in-the-briar-patch defense. He did something similar in a recent op-ed for The Washington Post in which he pretty much begged for regulation.

“I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “By updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms.”

I am not sure what exactly he means by “we,” since it has largely been Facebook making mistakes that impact the rest of us, with the United States government largely standing by without a clue and trying to figure out what is going on.

Pro tip: A lot has been going on. Here’s another free one — since the job of regulators is to protect us, they have to stop the enabling of powerful entities and start forcing them to get in line — with fines, more investigations, smart laws, programs to help small innovative companies to thrive, whatever it takes.

Still, this little fine is a start. As a taxpayer, I guess I’d like to thank Facebook for paying its parking ticket. But fair warning: Don’t make us put two zeros on the end of it.