France considers Internet tax | Circa News
Sergey Zelvenskiy stashed this in politics
Source: cir.ca
Stashed in: Europe
The presidential report justified the tax by asserting that users of services like Google and Facebook are effectively employees of the companies, since these companies make money off their users' personal data.
Wow! These politicians are becoming more and more dangerous by combining the industrial age thinking with the new understanding of how internet works.
So will Internet companies just stop serving France?
I think another SOPA style protest would do it. It will be more difficult to galvanize people around the issue. So now they are not shutting down the site, they just taxing it for providing a free service.
What can be more ridicules than classifying users as employees? If I went to Paris and then told my friend to go enjoy Louvre. I'm now an employee of Louvre? They just made money using my social network.
It does seem like the disconnect is particularly high.
I guess we need more technologists in politics?
10:08 AM Jan 21 2013