7 ms·

Well, that is the double edged sword. For two decades or more we enjoyed an internet that was more or less free from regulation because the politicians of the e

Well, that is the double edged sword. For two decades or more we enjoyed an internet that was more or less free from regulation because the politicians of the era didn't really use it or understand it. Now the politicians do use it (I doubt they understand it) and are happy to regulate it, I imagine we can expect much more like this from the EU.

matt4077 8y ago
It has nothing to with any politicians using or not using the internet. It simply was "unregulated" because it has less impact on the world, and because existing laws were by and large adequate to capture everything that did happen (contrary to popular opinion, the internet has always been subject to regular laws, and some fraud on E-bay is not materially different from offline fraud)
- Shivetya 8y ago
  No. What happened is politicians have found a new avenue for indirect taxation and the pay off long term is in the hundred of billions if not trillions of dollars over decades. The simplicity of it all is that it relies on the same two methods most indirect taxation works, ignorance and exploitation of jealousy. The ignorance part is easy, the public doesn't understand the scope of the issue or how it is a tax on their activities. The jealousy is sold by portraying those being taxed directly as not paying their fair share and such. Indirect taxes are the unseen but real burden on your paycheck
  - simias 8y ago
    I suppose you can reduce the fact that some people don't like that international tech giants effectively don't pay the same amount of taxes as the homegrown competition as "jealousy" but it's not extremely constructive. The big problem for the EU is that the internet is effectively a border-less global playing field which makes is very hard to enforce laws, taxes and regulations locally. I agree that their current approach is deeply flawed but at the same time it doesn't seem like we're nearing any kind of global governance for the internet so it seems that the alternative is either Chinese-style crass protectionism or just giving up and letting Google and Facebook eat the European web without giving anything back. Pick your poison.
    - mcny 8y ago
      I offer a simple solution but nobody likes to hear it. The solution to legal tax avoidance is to stop using tax incentives to do public policy. Set a single income tax rate for all businesses that they pay on revenue, not on profits. Do the same for individuals as well. No deductions, no credits. If you make $200k a year, your taxes are the same whether you have zero dependants or twelve. Similarly, if you made $200M in revenue, you pay taxes on the $200M. This is a little difficult because I have no idea how to account for Google putting ads for Pixel devices on Google search results or Facebook peddling their Alexa device in Instagram but there must be a way to force companies to report this as revenue. No idea how this will work for the Google home page for which there is no established price structure. We can still keep a progressive tax regime. Maybe 0% income tax for revenues under a certain amount and higher taxes for higher brackets. But people never want to listen. They keep saying oh grocery stores will go out of business or whatever. I think it is pretty silly. We can't have it both ways. If we want to prevent legal tax avoidance, we must act to prevent tax avoidance.
      - Thiez 8y ago
        That solution is not simple at all. Let's take the creation and selling of wooden chairs as an example. Let's say chopping down trees costs $100, turning wood into chairs costs $100, and selling chairs also costs $100. Let's assume companies are non-profits (to make things easier). Company A Spends $100 to create a unit of wood. Company B spends $100 for a unit of wood, and spends $100 to make that into a chair, and sells for $200. Company C spends $200 to buy a chair, spends $100 to have a nice shop and friendly sales people, and sells for $300. Now let's add taxes! We'll do 10% to make the numbers easy. Company A pays $10 taxes. Company B pays $20 taxes. Company C pays $30 taxes. Total taxes paid on a chair bought at company C: $60. Now we introduce company D. Company D is large, and can produce its own wood, has its own chair-making factory, and has its own shop. A chair at company D also costs $300. But company D only has to pay $30 in taxes! In the real world, company D will immediately drive companies A, B, and C out of business (or acquire them!) because it can sell its chairs cheaper, because it only had to pay taxes once. The problem with your suggested solution is that companies owning their entire production line get an immediate tax-advantage over smaller companies who do not. If implemented, there would still be legal tax avoidance by simply forming bigger companies.
vilifiedtwin 8y ago
It is more like politicians realised they can make a lot of money creating regulations in the internet space for whoever pays more. Just like they do with anything else. They just need to wrap it with nice words and public is going to buy anything, you just need to cook it in the media for a bit. I am being cynical but there are no good intentions in the politics, it is only about power and money. They just need to be careful to not anger the Plebs too much.
Tsubasachan 8y ago
Double edged sword indeed. Without regulation the internet turned into shit and we have companies like Google and Facebook running the show.
- point78 8y ago
  With regulation what can be done with them tho
- dantheman 8y ago
  I'd say the internet is better and more useful than it's ever been. Some parts can be improved, but if we look at the track record of regulations so far it definitely looks more 'cure is worse than the disease'.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  Human society is full of problems. Now most of human society uses the internet and not only the more educated, privileged ones. So obviously all the ordinary problems came to the internet. But I don't see how regulation would have prevented that, nor any improvement of any regulation so far.
  - krageon 8y ago
    It seems a little disingenuous to say that you can't see how the GDPR has improved the privacy situation online, unless you didn't care about it before it was a thing and still don't care about it now.
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      Well then tell me: did it stop anyone from tracking me? Did it stop facebook from manipulating the communication of their users? Did it stop google from harvesting data out of most websites? It mostly just created work and more annoying banners for people to click away, but no real improvement I see. But you see more? Maybe you mean the recent discussion in germany that landlords might have to remove the names on the door? Or new opportunities for bored and greedy lawers to sue websites who did not care or knew enough and don't have lawers on their own?
rayiner 8y ago
What do you mean they don't "understand" it? Like, they don't get the mechanics of how HTTP and links work?

matt4077 8y ago

It has nothing to with any politicians using or not using the internet. It simply was "unregulated" because it has less impact on the world, and because existing laws were by and large adequate to capture everything that did happen (contrary to popular opinion, the internet has always been subject to regular laws, and some fraud on E-bay is not materially different from offline fraud)

Shivetya 8y ago
No. What happened is politicians have found a new avenue for indirect taxation and the pay off long term is in the hundred of billions if not trillions of dollars over decades. The simplicity of it all is that it relies on the same two methods most indirect taxation works, ignorance and exploitation of jealousy. The ignorance part is easy, the public doesn't understand the scope of the issue or how it is a tax on their activities. The jealousy is sold by portraying those being taxed directly as not paying their fair share and such. Indirect taxes are the unseen but real burden on your paycheck
- simias 8y ago
  I suppose you can reduce the fact that some people don't like that international tech giants effectively don't pay the same amount of taxes as the homegrown competition as "jealousy" but it's not extremely constructive. The big problem for the EU is that the internet is effectively a border-less global playing field which makes is very hard to enforce laws, taxes and regulations locally. I agree that their current approach is deeply flawed but at the same time it doesn't seem like we're nearing any kind of global governance for the internet so it seems that the alternative is either Chinese-style crass protectionism or just giving up and letting Google and Facebook eat the European web without giving anything back. Pick your poison.
  - mcny 8y ago
    I offer a simple solution but nobody likes to hear it. The solution to legal tax avoidance is to stop using tax incentives to do public policy. Set a single income tax rate for all businesses that they pay on revenue, not on profits. Do the same for individuals as well. No deductions, no credits. If you make $200k a year, your taxes are the same whether you have zero dependants or twelve. Similarly, if you made $200M in revenue, you pay taxes on the $200M. This is a little difficult because I have no idea how to account for Google putting ads for Pixel devices on Google search results or Facebook peddling their Alexa device in Instagram but there must be a way to force companies to report this as revenue. No idea how this will work for the Google home page for which there is no established price structure. We can still keep a progressive tax regime. Maybe 0% income tax for revenues under a certain amount and higher taxes for higher brackets. But people never want to listen. They keep saying oh grocery stores will go out of business or whatever. I think it is pretty silly. We can't have it both ways. If we want to prevent legal tax avoidance, we must act to prevent tax avoidance.
    - Thiez 8y ago
      That solution is not simple at all. Let's take the creation and selling of wooden chairs as an example. Let's say chopping down trees costs $100, turning wood into chairs costs $100, and selling chairs also costs $100. Let's assume companies are non-profits (to make things easier). Company A Spends $100 to create a unit of wood. Company B spends $100 for a unit of wood, and spends $100 to make that into a chair, and sells for $200. Company C spends $200 to buy a chair, spends $100 to have a nice shop and friendly sales people, and sells for $300. Now let's add taxes! We'll do 10% to make the numbers easy. Company A pays $10 taxes. Company B pays $20 taxes. Company C pays $30 taxes. Total taxes paid on a chair bought at company C: $60. Now we introduce company D. Company D is large, and can produce its own wood, has its own chair-making factory, and has its own shop. A chair at company D also costs $300. But company D only has to pay $30 in taxes! In the real world, company D will immediately drive companies A, B, and C out of business (or acquire them!) because it can sell its chairs cheaper, because it only had to pay taxes once. The problem with your suggested solution is that companies owning their entire production line get an immediate tax-advantage over smaller companies who do not. If implemented, there would still be legal tax avoidance by simply forming bigger companies.

vilifiedtwin 8y ago

It is more like politicians realised they can make a lot of money creating regulations in the internet space for whoever pays more. Just like they do with anything else. They just need to wrap it with nice words and public is going to buy anything, you just need to cook it in the media for a bit. I am being cynical but there are no good intentions in the politics, it is only about power and money. They just need to be careful to not anger the Plebs too much.

Tsubasachan 8y ago

Double edged sword indeed. Without regulation the internet turned into shit and we have companies like Google and Facebook running the show.

point78 8y ago
With regulation what can be done with them tho
dantheman 8y ago
I'd say the internet is better and more useful than it's ever been. Some parts can be improved, but if we look at the track record of regulations so far it definitely looks more 'cure is worse than the disease'.
hutzlibu 8y ago
Human society is full of problems. Now most of human society uses the internet and not only the more educated, privileged ones. So obviously all the ordinary problems came to the internet. But I don't see how regulation would have prevented that, nor any improvement of any regulation so far.
- krageon 8y ago
  It seems a little disingenuous to say that you can't see how the GDPR has improved the privacy situation online, unless you didn't care about it before it was a thing and still don't care about it now.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    Well then tell me: did it stop anyone from tracking me? Did it stop facebook from manipulating the communication of their users? Did it stop google from harvesting data out of most websites? It mostly just created work and more annoying banners for people to click away, but no real improvement I see. But you see more? Maybe you mean the recent discussion in germany that landlords might have to remove the names on the door? Or new opportunities for bored and greedy lawers to sue websites who did not care or knew enough and don't have lawers on their own?

rayiner 8y ago

What do you mean they don't "understand" it? Like, they don't get the mechanics of how HTTP and links work?