<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>
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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>
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<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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