Originally Posted by
EuropeanPete
Of course they could - but no reason why they wouldn’t do that anyways. Business decisions are not always rational, so it could well happen, but that’s still very far from claiming that corporate fines = consumers pay.
Much more likely that shareholders pay; Marriott earns revenue from hotels that rent rooms to customers. Room rates are set in a (moderately) competitive environment. Raising room rates (or otherwise making terms worse for customers) will likely lead to customers going elsewhere and hence reducing future revenue. The stock price is already down by some estimate of the future costs of the breach.