[IP] more on more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? | Tech News on ZDNet

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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.biz

If 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.com
Subject: [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

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