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Canada considering internet link tax

16 points by drchiu 6y ago

igammarays 6y ago
I can understand why Canada and almost any other country would be upset about the huge rivers of money flowing out to a foreign tech company, but this tax looks like it’ll just make things more expensive for the Canadian consumer. I think a better way to protect Canadian interests would be to require that personal data, servers, and support staff serving Canadian consumers be located within the country.
- verdverm 6y ago
  What happens when every country you operate in wants this?
  - igammarays 6y ago
    Good. Make the tech giants pay towards the countries’ infrastructure they depend on. They can afford it.
    - verdverm 6y ago
      Good? Do you have any idea how much this would cost? The administration alone would be a nightmare. The solution will be to stop doing business in many of the countries, where it no longer makes sense. Besides, it will still be cheaper to buy politicians. You'd have to fix that first.
  - tomatotomato37 6y ago
    If you're company is based in US/India/China you can just go "fuck it" and only offer your services internally, and still becoming absolutely ludicrously filthy rich because your home country is the size of a continent with individual states/provinces producing more economic output than some old world nations. If you aren't based in an absurd world superpower than you just go bankrupt.
    - verdverm 6y ago
      Kinda reminds me of this podcast / transcript about one person's ideas on the coming geopolitical reorganization https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/charter-cities-podcast-episode-6-peter-zeihan https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/charter-cities-p...
- voisin 6y ago
  The Canadian government making something needlessly more expensive for Canadian consumers? I am shocked, shocked I say.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  Yeah. Obviously he doesn’t know how the internet works and they don’t understand just how big these tech companies are. A threat that would take away the entire Canadian market might not even get traction. Canada: You have to pay us one cent per result that includes our content. Google: Ok. You have to pay use 2 cents per view that shows your content if you want to be included in search results. Lol. I’m Canadian and 100% on-board with the idea that big tech is out of control, but there’s got to be better options than this. How about some consumer rights legislation?
donmcronald 6y ago
> Facebook this week told the Australian regulator that removing Australian news content from its site would not materially affect its revenues, adding that it sent more than two billion clicks to Australian publishers in the first five months of 2020 worth hundreds of millions of dollars. How do they get that? Is it based on what Facebook would charge an advertiser for a click? I don’t know anything about it, but 2 billion clicks being worth hundreds of millions of dollars doesn’t pass the smell test for me.
- moltar 6y ago
  Why not? The cheapest click you can get is $0.05, which is nearly impossible. But let’s say it was possible, it’d be 100 million.
grawprog 6y ago
Internet and service are already garbage here compared to nearly every where else in the world. I've got two choices for home internet where I live and 'two' choices of phone company, both owned by the same parent company. I pay twice as much for half as much data as most other places in the world. My carrier subjects me to random throttling i've still to figure out entirely what's affected and when after years, Canada's internet policies have favoured big business for as long as they've existed with the consumers being constantly screwed over. To be honest, this has been going on longer than there's been internet with phone and cable providers. This is just another push in the favour of big businesses who can afford to pay over others who can't, while the government takes its, generous, cut.

16 points by drchiu 6y ago

I can understand why Canada and almost any other country would be upset about the huge rivers of money flowing out to a foreign tech company, but this tax looks like it’ll just make things more expensive for the Canadian consumer. I think a better way to protect Canadian interests would be to require that personal data, servers, and support staff serving Canadian consumers be located within the country.

verdverm 6y ago
What happens when every country you operate in wants this?
- igammarays 6y ago
  Good. Make the tech giants pay towards the countries’ infrastructure they depend on. They can afford it.
  - verdverm 6y ago
    Good? Do you have any idea how much this would cost? The administration alone would be a nightmare. The solution will be to stop doing business in many of the countries, where it no longer makes sense. Besides, it will still be cheaper to buy politicians. You'd have to fix that first.
- tomatotomato37 6y ago
  If you're company is based in US/India/China you can just go "fuck it" and only offer your services internally, and still becoming absolutely ludicrously filthy rich because your home country is the size of a continent with individual states/provinces producing more economic output than some old world nations. If you aren't based in an absurd world superpower than you just go bankrupt.
  - verdverm 6y ago
    Kinda reminds me of this podcast / transcript about one person's ideas on the coming geopolitical reorganization https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/charter-cities-podcast-episode-6-peter-zeihan https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/charter-cities-p...
voisin 6y ago
The Canadian government making something needlessly more expensive for Canadian consumers? I am shocked, shocked I say.
donmcronald 6y ago
Yeah. Obviously he doesn’t know how the internet works and they don’t understand just how big these tech companies are. A threat that would take away the entire Canadian market might not even get traction. Canada: You have to pay us one cent per result that includes our content. Google: Ok. You have to pay use 2 cents per view that shows your content if you want to be included in search results. Lol. I’m Canadian and 100% on-board with the idea that big tech is out of control, but there’s got to be better options than this. How about some consumer rights legislation?

donmcronald 6y ago

> Facebook this week told the Australian regulator that removing Australian news content from its site would not materially affect its revenues, adding that it sent more than two billion clicks to Australian publishers in the first five months of 2020 worth hundreds of millions of dollars. How do they get that? Is it based on what Facebook would charge an advertiser for a click? I don’t know anything about it, but 2 billion clicks being worth hundreds of millions of dollars doesn’t pass the smell test for me.

moltar 6y ago
Why not? The cheapest click you can get is $0.05, which is nearly impossible. But let’s say it was possible, it’d be 100 million.

grawprog 6y ago

Internet and service are already garbage here compared to nearly every where else in the world. I've got two choices for home internet where I live and 'two' choices of phone company, both owned by the same parent company. I pay twice as much for half as much data as most other places in the world. My carrier subjects me to random throttling i've still to figure out entirely what's affected and when after years, Canada's internet policies have favoured big business for as long as they've existed with the consumers being constantly screwed over. To be honest, this has been going on longer than there's been internet with phone and cable providers. This is just another push in the favour of big businesses who can afford to pay over others who can't, while the government takes its, generous, cut.