2 ms·
Maybe I'm looking for logic where there is none, but could someone explain what, precisely, the CA gov't is proposing to tax here? Is it a percentage of revenue
by noduerme 3y ago
Maybe I'm looking for logic where there is none, but could someone explain what, precisely, the CA gov't is proposing to tax here? Is it a percentage of revenue from any ads that appear on the same page as a news link? A percentage of global ad revenue even if the ads are on different pages than the news links? Just Canadian news links or what?
Also, what is "news"? Do links to Hacker News count?
Would, let's say, a blog about cars based in another country get a tax bill from Canada if it ran ads and also included a link to a news site somewhere in its content? What if users post a news link in the blog's comments?
Do "real" news sites have to pay tax for links to other news sites?
The mind reels once you start thinking about all the potential gray areas in something so vague. But maybe it's simple and I'm just missing the core concept. What the hell is going on here?
- paxys 3y agoDon't try to find sense in the hundreds of pages of meaningless legalese. They are nothing but a reverse justification of a single directive – the Canadian government simply wants Google and Facebook to pay 4% of their annual revenue to Rogers, Bell and CBC.
- chongli 3y agoThe law only applies to businesses deemed by the government's regulatory agency (CRTC) to be "news intermediaries". So far, it looks like only Facebook and Google will be covered by this. The law has guidelines on who qualifies as a "news intermediary", and it requires you to be of a certain size (large revenues), so this isn't going to apply to Joe Blogger's Car News.