[governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

[Kerry Brown]

Google Analytics is quite good at detecting where a user is located as
long as the user is not trying to obfuscate their location. It is quite
easy obfuscate your location if you desire. VPNs, proxies, and things like
TOR can be used alone or in combination to cause enough doubt that IP
addresses cannot be used to identify a location or a person. With money
involved many people would be trying to scam the system.

I'm not against some sort of global taxation scheme. I think it is
impractical given the number of jurisdictions involved. I think that
trying to stop people from scamming the system would give governments too
much control that could be used for other less desirous actions. Finally I
believe that the Internet and the definition of IP rights are evolving so
fast that the system would always be out of date with current business
practices. For those reasons I would oppose such a scheme. I do believe in
a democratic process. If somehow the majority of Internet users were for
such a scheme then yes, it would take some very clever minds to figure out
a technical solution. Under those circumstances I'd support such a scheme.

Kerry Brown

On 11-07-14 7:48 AM, "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

>Interesting reply Kerry (and it's good to see another Canadian involved in
>these discussions :)
>
>Couldn't there be alternative processes of allocating the results of any
>tax
>collected -- per capita, Internet usage, self-reporting of location on a
>quantitative basis and so on?
>
>I'm not disagreeing with your concern regarding a digital ID and access to
>that (CIRA's procedures/safeguards might also work here would they not)?
>
>I'm also wondering whether something akin to Google Analytics which seems
>to
>be able to pinpoint those accessing and downloading from the online
>journal
>that I edit to the city level might also not be useable here?
>
>I guess the question is one of whether you think the issue of
>"identification" at this level makes the process of a global taxation
>regime
>for (let's say) virtual goods is impossible in principle or something
>which
>we need to put some very clever minds to figuring out a technical solution
>to.
>
>Best,
>
>M
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kerry Brown [mailto:kerry at kdbsystems.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 7:33 AM
>To: michael gurstein; governance at lists.cpsr.org
>Subject: RE: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on
>Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial
>period
>
>
>> I'm not sure why you think that a mechanism for global governance to
>> allow for some sort of regulation/taxation would necessarily require
>> tracking of Internet users anymore than they are already
>> trackable/traceable for the purposes of e-commerce which is the point
>> of the exercise.
>> 
>
>In order to ensure that all relevant jurisdictions receive their portion
>of
>any tax collected both the seller and the purchaser must be identified.
>In a
>physical transaction the goods can be followed and taxes applied. In a
>virtual transaction with no physical goods only the seller and buyer can
>be
>tracked. Without ensuring the identity of the buyer it would be easy for
>buyers to scam the system and avoid paying the tax. I don't think a
>worldwide taxation system could work without some form of irrefutable
>digital ID that is open to inspection by any government. I'm not against a
>digital ID. It would actually help with Internet commerce. I am against
>any
>government having access to how and where these IDs are used without some
>kind of court oversight. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but for me it is
>the
>top of a slippery slope that leads to more government control.
>
>Kerry Brown
>

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