You must also play out the game theory in time, not just an instant. Whatever the fine may be today, should they be caught doing this again, the fine will be (or so the theory goes) much larger. The fine is not just about the negative payment, it's also about the fact that if they do it again in the future, they'll pay out more, making doing it again in the future much less attractive, and also doing anything like the thing they just did much less attractive.
I realize it may emotionally feel good to demand larger fines, but I'm not sure it would have all that great an effect above and beyond what it already has. And the HN gestalt would be among the first to complain about what happens to the workers of Verizon if a fine that actually did greatly hurt them was issued, so "much larger fines" could well go to a negative value to the HN gestalt if a full accounting is done.
There was an interesting Economist article [0] a few years back that suggested a better option might be "penalties that offset the benefits of crime" rather than ones that try to arbitrarily 'punish' the offender. You'd see much larger fines, but they wouldn't be so large as to cause additional, unexpected consequences. The tricky part is improving detection rates, which increases the risk of the action even setting aside the question of fine size.
Compared to cartel price-fixing, Verizon's UIDH insertion is actually much easier to detect. In fact, anyone can do so just by looking at their access logs. I think that, more than fine size, will be the primary reason that they won't try this again. That's not to say they won't play other games, however.
Anyhow, if you really want to change a particular behavior, class action suits offer a much more attractive option where they're possible. They don't really benefit the class members financially (they're not supposed to), but they are one hell of a big stick. And historically, a very effective one at that. Even when companies prevail, they tend to take notice and often change the behavior in question.
Obviously though you'd need to fine a company enough to cover 1) the damages and 2) the risk-adjusted benefit of cheating and hoping to not be caught and 3) a hefty wallop to encourage compliance.
If you only fine for directly provable damages you encourage cheats who find new hidden areas, and if you don't punish all offenders a certain base amount you encourage those who cheat for indirect gain (hard to quantify at trial) such as market share.
And to actually change behavior, attack the leaders directly. Corporate fines mean nothing! They're usually not even relevant to the directors and officers compensation. Prove conspiracy, force the company to withdraw legal aid, and attack their personal assets.
I realize it may emotionally feel good to demand larger fines, but I'm not sure it would have all that great an effect above and beyond what it already has. And the HN gestalt would be among the first to complain about what happens to the workers of Verizon if a fine that actually did greatly hurt them was issued, so "much larger fines" could well go to a negative value to the HN gestalt if a full accounting is done.