News today that Telecom is to be prosecuted for its 2006 "Go Large" broadband promotion that ran under the banner "Xtra Broadband is about to be unleashed!". The campaign -- promising "unlimited data usage and all the internet you can handle" along with "maximum speed internet" -- was swiftly shown to be an utter farce by readers of this blog.

The Commerce Commission is pushing for a prosecution, alleging breaches of the Fair Trading Act, and saying that Telecom misled the public and made false or misleading representations about the Go Large plan.

Which is all well and good.

What isn't so great is that if Telecom are found guilty, they face a maximum fine of just $200,000. To put that in perspective, their net profit last year was $3 billion -- or around $5,700 per minute. So if they're found guilty and they're hit with the maximum fine, it'll cost 'em just 35 minutes worth of profit.

I bet they're quaking in their boots.