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more on more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 07:03:42 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Marc Aniballi <marc () zenture biz> Date: May 28, 2006 1:34:31 AM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net>Subject: Re: [IP] more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet
Reply-To: marc () zenture bizIf I may chime in: the european model is "sender pays." For SMS and MMS it is a very simple task to levy the tax against all european providers and let them sort out what to do about messages arriving from "non-affiliated" sources. If it is costing them money to relay them, you can bet they will find a way to either chargeback or reject the messages.
While email is more difficult, the government could simply make it illegal to operate a mail server that serves the EU without being registered, audited and collecting the tax. While it would be fairly easy to bypass, technically, the majority of people would comply rather than risk criminal charges. Obviously, spam would drop off as soon as ISPs stopped accepting emails from servers that weren't registered and paying the tax. A ray of sunshine to fool you into thinking the storm has passed.
The real question isn't HOW could they, but more realistically - should they be allowed?
- there is a block for every hack, and a hack for every block - just another self-perpetuating industry, like national security! :-)
Regards, Marc Aniballi This message was sent using a portable messaging device. -----Original Message----- From: David Farber <dave () farber net> Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 19:42:12 To:ip () v2 listbox comSubject: [IP] more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet
Begin forwarded message: From: Bob Frankston <Bob2-19-0501 () bobf frankston com> Date: May 27, 2006 12:04:12 PM EDT To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com Subject: RE: [IP] EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet It would be useful for someone to ask him how he plans to tax email or even the definition of email. But there’s a precedent – the Stamp Act. It tried to tax all communication by taxing paper. The issue is not so much the misunderstanding but the degree to which these misunderstandings goes unchecked and unchallenged. Shouldn’t the press do more than transcribing such statements? At very least shouldn’t they be asking for clarification. Maybe this is indeed overblown and is not going to go anywhere. What is the status of that working group? I can understand the idea of taxing SMS – after all, the carriers’ purpose in life is billing so you can’t send an SMS without generating a billable event. But outside the world of carriers billability is not the primarily purpose of life. I see a parallel with the Smithsonian withdrawing itself from the public. It’s not the 30 year exclusivity as much as the inability to understand a world in which we aren’t forced to go through intermediaries because we are able to create the solutions ourselves. Today we can find our own paths through the infrastructure instead of relying on services from those who insist on carrying messages on our behalf whether or not we want them to. I presume these efforts are no different from the challenge of coming to terms with other new technologies – the auto-mobile, tele-graph or, for that matter, the wheel. From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 07:44 To: ip () v2 listbox com Subject: [IP] EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6077464.html?tag=zdnn.alert European Union lawmakers are investigating a proposed tax on e-mails and mobile phone text messages as a way to fund the 25-member bloc in the future. A European Parliament working group is reviewing the idea, tabled by Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French MEP and member of the center- right European People's Party, the assembly's largest group. Lamassoure, a member of Jacques Chirac's UMP party, is proposing to add a tax of about 1.5 cents on text or SMS messages and a 0.00001 cent levy on every e-mail sent. snip You are subscribed as BobIP () Bobf Frankston com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/ ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as marcaniballi () hotmail com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/
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- more on more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet David Farber (May 28)