

French President Pushes For 'Google Tax' - miles
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/french-president-pushes-for--google-tax--2971

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Raphael_Amiard
>The proposals are aimed at helping to save French creative industries from
the 'free-for-all' Internet culture.

Let them die please, they produce nothing worthy.

Also i find it fun to see them speak of multi-million euros industries who
have done more to kill creation than any other, like if they needed to be
saved. This is so typical of our actual government in france. Actually protect
the wealthy by pretending they're poor, and do nothing for people who actually
needs help.

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gaius
Also see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1007048>

How can the French do this without falling foul of EU laws?

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boulou
Can we all calm down and look objectively at the situation ? This may help :

President Obama has thrown his weight behind a plan that could see foreign
firms such as Chinese Global Internet Services being taxed for doing business
in USA.

Known as the Chinese Global Services Tax, the controversial proposals will
force foreign Internet firms to pay a new tax on their online advertising
revenue in USA.

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hussong
Thanks for re-balancing the view.

The big picture behind this is scary. If every nation starts taxing internet
companies from every other nation for revenue generated off their own
population (regardless if said company has a presence in that country), it'll
slow down growth tremendously and kill a lot of business models.

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Xixi
I'm trying to remember the last week a new tax was not introduced in France...
I can't find, someone to help ?

I might be a bit cynical, but the truth is that this has nothing to do with
culture, the French internet, or anything similar: this has all to do with
France abyssal debt and chronically unbalanced budgets (the last balanced
budget was in the seventies...), and the need for the government to get more
money.

So why Google ? Because it's easy to explain citizens that you are going to
tax a foreign company. Easier than telling them that they will have to pay yet
another tax. And if it doesn't work because of the EU, the government will
have someone else to blame for the need of a new tax on the French taxpayer...
et voilà.

This, or they are really stupid and think that taxing Google will somehow have
a positive outcome on French economy. I don't think they are stupid.

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b3mus3d
I wonder what this means for smaller websites that also use advertising (I run
a games site, for example)? I think this has the potential to grow into a very
complicated situation if it works out for France and other countries follow
suit.

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catch23
Seems like if you start making money off of people in France, you'd have to
pay a tax.

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thibaut_barrere
Well - we already do :)

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zitterbewegung
Just wait, google not available in your region unless you pay $4.95 per month

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jswinghammer
There should be a tax on every player in every industry other than the
smallest player in this industry if this logic holds.

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dbz
It would be funny if google responded by not allowing the French to use it's
services. =]

On the other hand. It's not a bad idea for America. If we taxed advertisements
I /might/ see less of the ones I find annoying. And we could funnel that money
into education or health care. Reducing the US' carbon footprint. Bleh. Lots
of uses.

But a tax that citizens aren't paying (in this context) is a great idea in my
opinion.

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ilkhd2
Such an idiotic claim: "stop enrichment of the world's leading internet
players." Why not? I mean, if the would tax google, what, a new french service
will pop up overnight? So odd...

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gaius
The French are still smarting over the irrelevance of Minitel to the wider
world. You know, they were once the leading players in getting consumers to
adopt network services. Now the world has passed them by.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Just curious (really) - where do you see French smarting over the Minitel ?

I'm French and around me (including friends who are living outside France)
nobody seems to be bragging about the Minitel these days (maybe 10 years ago,
but now, no really).

We consider it mostly some outdated device that had its importance a long
while back.

Any links or feedback to provide ?

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r00k
I think you may have misunderstood. "smarting over" is somewhat idiomatic
English. It means to be embarrassed by something. In other words, you and the
person you replied to seem to agree.

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thibaut_barrere
Haah - thanks for the clarification.

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gaius
"Smart" also means, umm, "a stinging sensation" I guess. The physical
manifestation of embarrassment, or the physical equivalent of the emotion of
embarrassment. You might say, "ow, that smarts". I didn't realize it wouldn't
translate :-)

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dnsworks
This makes sense. When economic transactions occur over practices that
diminish the quality of life, they should be heavily taxed, like cigarettes or
television.

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Wiz
Why the fuck so much pussies voted for Sarkozy ? He is trying to create an
internet less free (free bear AND free speech) than real life. What an
asshole. I can't remember how many times I wished someone would have killed
him, rather than insulting him in public, medias or anything.

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dcurtis
Wow, I think you win. This is by far the worst comment I have ever seen on
Hacker News.

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hugh_
Y'see, this is why I don't like the fact that comments can no longer go below
-4.

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lsb
On the reply page to a comment, there's a flag, so just flag it.

