Posted on 11/01/2014 12:08:57 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Edited on 11/01/2014 12:27:31 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Technology giant Google says it is "disappointed" after Thursday's decision by the Spanish parliament to approve the introduction of charges for aggregating news stories in search engine results.
Thanks to the majority held by the ruling Popular Party, Spain
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.es ...
I’m certain that whatever the tax is it will be deductible on their USA tax.
Good for the EU! I approve.
Taxes are a cost of doing business. The tax will be paid by net users. How? They will see more ad trash.
Enjoy, Euro-fools.
Another threat on the horizon.
All hands on deck. This will eventually be aimed at us.
Google should pull their servers out of Spain. ay off all the employees who work here. Screw em.
Tax the good deeds, reward corrupt politicians, socialism for yah.
Where are the internet rule which say that news stories cannot be aggregated into web searches? Anyone?
WTF is this? Screw these people.
As if the brains in Europe belong to the EU... Ridiculous.
The Founding Fathers would be shocked if they could see how their concept of a very limited copyright has become virtually without limit.
Google is run by Liberals. They should be thrilled at this opportunity to pay taxes! (or should it be called an “investment?”)
Now why do you suppose that is? Companies pay to make themselves more prominent in search engine results, because it increases traffic to their sites. Google and others will simply exclude them from results. Bad for the media outlets, bad for google, and bad for users. Other than that, it's a great idea.
It’s about time. Google makes many billions of dollars selling ads for views of content that other people created. Then they make more selling data about everyone that looks at that content, or the accompanying ads. We used to call that “free-riding”, or worse.
I don't think the ruling Popular Party is going to be very popular in the future.
“Google makes many billions of dollars selling ads for views of content that other people created. Then they make more selling data about everyone that looks at that content, or the accompanying ads.”
This isn’t going to work like you think.
But it will be instructive to watch from a distance.
I do business on the Internet, and Content. I desperately WANT Google to find me.
If it's bad for Google, it's good for mankind.
I'll bet it did. The other side of the equation is that this "free" use is also "free" advertisement. You can't have the latter without putting up with the former.
It's certainly the right of the material's originator to charge and restrict use as he/she desires. That's why FR disallows postings from those who desire it, extracts from those who desire it, and why links to the original media are supplied in the posting. For a third party such as the government to intrude on this transaction by levying a tax is the sort of thing governments do that sound fine and end up with negative consequences. As it did in Germany.
Every politician elected should have this lesson tattooed on his/her/its forehead so they can see it in the mirror every morning: taxes do two things: they generate revenue and discourage the activity being taxed. You can't have the one without the other.
And so taxing this sort of thing will discourage it as well, and that might not be a good thing overall. And there is an additional question that government should find uncomfortable but does not: it will generate revenue...for whom? For the content owners, or for the government? Is 100% of this transferred to the former, or does the government take its cut off the top for "administrative" purposes? And if the latter, who really is the beneficiary? And why does government tend to grow?
Your hatred of Google appears to be interfering with your ability to think.
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