<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>I completely agree with only the first paragraph that Parminder wrote.  The tax as such is infeasible, and creates a perverse sort of balance between information gathered and amount of tax levied.   It also pays absolutely no attention to the privacy aspects of information gathering.<br><br>The second paragraph, casting this in a broader context .. well, I disagree.  We need to stick to a narrow and focused scope of definition for IG, without which we squander our efforts and limited resources.</div><div><br>--srs (iPad)</div><div><br>On 24-Jan-2013, at 10:24, parminder <<a href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder@itforchange.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
  
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    The proposition that governments should collect a tax because
    companies gather personal information prima facie does not appeal
    very much to me. It seems to raise a number of difficult questions -
    for instance, in collecting such a tax what kind of blanket
    permission may be taken to have been granted for what kind of
    practices.. One will however have to read the whole report to be
    able to give an informed comment on the proposal which I reserve for
    the present. <br>
    <br>
    What is important to stress here however is the larger issue that
    these kinds of news and reports bring up, and increasingly so. Some
    of us have been trying to raise the issue for a long time on this
    list and other global IG fora; that IG centrally implicated a huge
    number of very important issues of economic distribution and social
    justice. It not just a matter of civil and political rights. We need
    to raise, understand and analyse these issues and possible ways to
    address them. This is something the global civil society engaged in
    the IG area has completely failed to so do, which has affected its
    credibility among the political actors in the South. And also among
    the global civil society groups active in issues of economic and
    social justice. IGC must look for ways to create the needed bridges
    with these constituencies and groups, for it to emerge as a
    credible/ premier civil society group  in the area of global IG...<br>
    <br>
    parminder <br>
    <br>
    <br>
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    <br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Tuesday 22 January 2013 08:54 PM,
      Milton L Mueller wrote:<br>
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                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">The
                            report published Friday said a tax on data
                            collection was justified on grounds that
                            users of services like Google and Facebook
                            are, in effect, working for these companies
                            without pay by providing the personal
                            information that lets them sell advertising.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Courier
                                New";color:#1F497D">[Milton L
                                Mueller] Good deal. In order to
                                compensate and protect us from “working
                                without pay” we will work for the
                                government of France without pay as
                                well. Cartesian logic at work.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Courier
                                New";color:#1F497D">Or perhaps they
                                will use the revenues to subsidize
                                access to Facebook and Google, since
                                they charge their users so much that…um,
                                well, some of them, um, can’t afford…
                                oh, never mind.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Courier
                                New";color:#1F497D">Of course, this
                                is just a tax on the advertisers, in the
                                end. It will simply increase the costs
                                of Google/Facebook and be recovered from
                                advertisers. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Courier
                                New";color:#1F497D">It wouldn’t be
                                France however unless you threw a
                                soupcon of anti-Americanism and trade
                                protectionism into the pot as well (will
                                the same tax will be applied to all
                                commercial broadcasters in France, whose
                                viewers are sold to advertisers “without
                                pay”?) How about French newspapers with
                                ads – their poor customers even have to
                                pay for the newspaper, and then are sold
                                to advertisers. Merde!<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Courier
                                New";color:#1F497D">Interestingly,
                                this whole line of argument presumes
                                that the services users receive in
                                return for their data are worthless.
                                Remember that next time you hear someone
                                claim that Google and Facebook are
                                “essential facilities” that no one can
                                live without.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Courier
                                New";color:#1F497D">It’s sad that
                                governments that just want more money
                                have to strain to come up with trendy
                                rationalizations. What happened to the
                                good old days when they just sent in
                                armed thugs to appropriate a bunch of
                                your pigs and cows?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
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</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>____________________________________________________________</span><br><span>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:</span><br><span>     <a href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a></span><br><span>To be removed from the list, visit:</span><br><span>     <a href="http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing">http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing</a></span><br><span></span><br><span>For all other list information and functions, see:</span><br><span>     <a href="http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance">http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance</a></span><br><span>To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:</span><br><span>     <a href="http://www.igcaucus.org/">http://www.igcaucus.org/</a></span><br><span></span><br><span>Translate this email: <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_t">http://translate.google.com/translate_t</a></span><br></div></blockquote></body></html>