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Please, start regulating and taxing these multinational advertising companies much more aggressively. Once advertising companies like Facebook or Google reach
by flexie 9y ago
Please, start regulating and taxing these multinational advertising companies much more aggressively.
Once advertising companies like Facebook or Google reach a certain size, they should be required to pay taxes where the ads are shown to users.
Make a set of basic EU user terms and privacy policy for advertising companies masked as social networks, search engines, email providers etc, some of it mandatory, some of it that they can opt out off. But advertising companies above a certain size shouldn't be allowed to set their own (American) terms.
And please, split up these behemoths. It's not good for anyone that one search engine and one social network rules it all. They have EU-wide market shares above 90 percent. We would never allow that in industries as automobiles or television. We would never allow it for newspapers or tv stations. Somehow, we allow it for social networks and search engines.
- ae64 9y agoAt what cost? Would displaying significantly more ads to EU users to offset the regional tax hikes be worth the revenue raised?
- arximboldi 9y agoRegardless of the taxing system, Facebook would already show you as many ads as possible. It makes no sense to me that they would show more ads in EU in that case, because that means that they could also increase the number of ads shown in the US and increase their profit. If anything, it would just cut their surplus.
- ae64 9y agoI don't believe that's entirely true, Facebook has endless channels (e.g. messenger) in which they could introduce or increase their advertising frequency (think Forbes). They could even disclose to end-users that these additional advertisements were being served specifically as they are within the EU, similar to the ubiquitous cookie pop-ups they are already well adjusted to seeing.
- johannes1234321 9y agoIf they bring a notable amount of ads people migrate of to snapchat, hangout, signal, telegram, whatever.
- icebraining 9y agoThey can increase the number of ads, but it's not clear that it would actually increase their profits.
- jondubois 9y agoThis is an excellent idea. Advertising ought to be taxed like Tobacco. Advertising is responsible for the increased monopolization of the economy, inequality, urbanization, over-consumption, greed, depression and many other issues... Advertising is a cancer on society. It doesn't offer any value to the consumer (at least Tobacco offers some temporary pleasure), it must be taxed harshly.
- MarchHare 9y agoWhats wrong with urbanisation?
- ainiriand 9y agoThis: https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/15/12187508/mountain-lions-cougars-hunting-developed-areas-california-ucla-study https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/15/12187508/mountain-lions-c... Conflict of habitats.
- MarchHare 9y agoIsn't that an argument for more urbanisation and less destruction of habitat via suburban sprawl?
- viridian 9y agoI think in this case he's including the suburbs in urban, as contrasted with rural living. In that light urbanization is generally harmful, as rural living tends to have less of an effect on wildlife since individuals are rarely stopping foxes, deer, etc from crossing through their property in the same way that miles of sprawl and deforested lawns do.
- rbg246 9y agoFarms destroy the natural environment as well, not many farms are in forests and you generally shoot things that might attack your sheep or cattle.
- m12k 9y agoIn general, we ought to be moving toward a unitary tax system, so multinationals will have to pay local taxes in the places they do business, rather than just being able to shift it wherever they want via transfer pricing. http://www.taxjustice.net/unitary-tax/ http://www.taxjustice.net/unitary-tax/
- ComodoHacker 9y agoWhere is that place where Internet advertising business is done?
- m12k 9y agoAs I understand it, it's a series of tubes... On a more serious note, it can be discussed when e.g. Google sells ad space to a German company which then advertises in France, whether the business is being done in Germany, France, or both. But it sure ain't Ireland or the Cayman Islands...
- noway421 9y agoIf there would be such tax, they wouldn't be able to become so big in the first place, investors would have far less faith in them. Their unrestrained growth was only possible with lack of regulation
- bryanrasmussen 9y agoso you mean - a tax would be a good thing?
- kbart 9y ago..and that's a good thing! Monopolies are only good for their owners.
- metalmanac 9y agoMight seem a little far fetched, but Google and FB should offer a way to opt out of being tracked around on the web. The average revenue per user in North America is around $20 per quarter, so charge $80 per year to use these services without being tracked. The $20 per user per quarter is mindblowing and that number is growing rapidly, no wonder selling user data is so lucrative.
- kayoone 9y ago> but Google and FB should offer a way to opt out of being tracked around on the web In Europe, this is even regulated in the EU data privacy directive, the problem is that FB et al just do not care because there are hardly any consequences.
- wayn3 9y agoI don't think its possible to HAVE any real consequences. Clearly they are american companies. Europe can't do a whole lot about shutting them down. They could block them, if it wasn't for laws. But even if it was not for laws, who would really want to not have access to google? To be real about any of this, the Internet is killing the concept of "jurisdiction".
- kayoone 9y agotechnically they have to adhere to EU laws because all of them have EU subsidiaries (mostly in Ireland) through which they act in Europe. But the irish government is obviously happy about all the jobs and taxes they bring to a small country without a lot of industry or natural resources, so all the lawsuits kind of go nowhere. See http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html
- wayn3 9y agoobviously. but they are only in ireland because it fiscally makes sense. there is no real reason for facebook to maintain a presence in the EU any more than they have to have a Seoul office to offer facebook services in south korea.
- briandear 9y agoWhy? Why I should when a company hits a certain size that suddenly regulators should go after it? The bigger question is why Europe struggles at creating 10x companies.
- oblio 9y agoWhat do you mean by 10x companies? There's quite a few big European companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_compa...).
- kayoone 9y ago> Make a set of basic EU user terms and privacy policy The problem is that they just won't care, the same as they don't care about the EU data privacy directives. All lawsuits end up at their irish subsidiaries who of course do nothing to anger their holy donors. Google and Facebook are violating so many EU data privacy laws all the time, without real consequence, it's not even funny. See http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html for some examples
- RichardHeart 9y agoAll companies with with network effect should be pre-emptively regulated for their emergent monopoly potential. Capatalism must reduce this first mover dominance crap, or you get facebook FOREVER.
- fa556317 9y agoDistgusting that you propose to dictate others life. If you and people like you have a problem with something, you need to come with solution on your own on. Its people like you who makes others hate their own governments.
- oblio 9y agoYou're basically proposing that a single person (ok, a group of persons) comes up with a solution against $60+ billion behemoths. Ever heard of Don Quijote? :)
- nindalf 9y ago> And please, split up these behemoths. Top reply > this is an excellent idea. On what basis are you splitting these behemoths? It was easy to split Ma Bell on the basis of geography but how would you split Google? Into American, Asian and European arms perhaps? Even putting aside the thorny problem of splitting the global infrastructure, how soon before one of the Googlets swallows the remaining ones either through acquisition or by out-competing them? And that's just Google. I can't even imagine how Facebook would be split up because a big draw of Facebook is being able to contact people no matter where they are. I don't need to register on a separate website if they move to a different country. I suppose its theoretically possible to force FB to spin off Whatsapp, Instagram etc into separate companies but you'll have the same problem of one of them making the others obsolete. That's exactly why Zuckerberg bought them in the first place - the fear that they would make FB obsolete. Too often I see comments exhibiting very poor understanding of economics being showered with upvotes on HN. While I agree that these firms should be more tightly regulated, I do think this policy of breaking them up is misguided.
- bmmayer1 9y agoFacebook and Google are also not anywhere close to monopolies--in fact, they are behemoth competitors against each other for online advertising dollars, because media companies sell to advertisers, not free end users.
- Bakary 9y agoThe panic is understandable, though. The amount of power these companies can accumulate combined with their lack of ethical behavior and contempt for rules is anxiety inducing. I see you did read that Economist article too haha
- nindalf 9y agoHahaha, you got me :)
- jondubois 9y agoI think that the idea of taxing advertising makes a lot of sense for the EU. Right now the US is effectively sucking the money out of the EU using its massive social advertising armada. I bet that most of the ads are driving consumers towards US-based brands at the expense of EU-based brands. If the EU imposed a tax on advertising, it would allow the EU government to reclaim some of these losses and level the playing fields for EU companies by reducing the power of advertising.