Link Tax ?! what do you think ?

[ocreditor]

I found some news about this issue, and I was wondering if this something will last...I tend to think that the'll not be able to enforce it ...what do you think ?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...ing-free.shtml

[Sherlock]

I think the stupid idea is just another step in divergence between real economy that will go underground and the regulated economy that is going towards planned economy like used to be Comecon.

There are many crazy socialist things within EU, that common folks do not have ideas about, at least I did not have. E.g. there are plans that a village or town with at least some amount of inhabitans has to have a pool (and probably much more such facilities, like hotels etc). The first person who properly fills all documents gets a grant that almost covers the costs. I am not sure if this is just in the East of EU, but probably also elsewhere; or elsewhere will be applied the same principle. If the business is not about finding the market gaps but about filling some papers, then it is socialism. Prices are making less and less sense.

But back to the topic: I think they will be able to enforce it if they decide. As they did something like that when they forced Google News in Spain to shut down. But the question is who they will be able to force? For sure not everybody will follow. So this or some other step of EU to regulate the internet will be followed by censorship, that will be necessary for real enforcement. And I think again this snippet-tax is aimed against big US companies, e.g. Facebook, who will have to pay ransom for their customers/users.

[ocreditor]

Thanks Sherlock.
Well I think it's stupid idea as well the more I think of it... it's like telling to a person that he need to pay tax each time he's recommending or mentioning anything... some rich people just want to have full control like they had in the Middle Ages...

[JackTenSuited]

Sounds like a bunch of decrepit old shareholders who don't know how the internet works getting their panties in a twist. Probably the same guys that ran Blockbusters and thought the internet was a fad.

[Triple7]

Tax, tax, tax, that's all European politicians are able to think about and protecting their socialist propaganda machine, called newspapers.

[universal4]

Any single news or media outlet that tries any of this stuff, should have a number of reactions.

#1 Google should immediately remove them from the index.
#2 Google, Bing, Yahoo and any other news aggregator should immediately stop linking to them and their stories.
#3 All websites should immediately stop linking to them and their stories.

Let's see how they like the LACK of TRAFFIC, linking and search engine indexing.

Rick
Universal4

[Sherlock]

Universal, I think exactly this happened in Spain. They just did not get the links anymore.

For me it is hard to evaluate. I indeed hated the EU policy that much that I emmigrated long time ago. There is no doubt this approach is crazy. On the other hand it is true that the big US companies that stepped in early have a huge advantage and monopolist power. I am scared of Google more than of all states and regulations around the world.

If someone is interested where those crazy ideas come from, then I personally think it is from German influence over EU. Germany after WWII developed a policy called Ordoliberalism. In short it is very antimonopolist policy, that maybe worked for much smaller and much more closed West German economics. But I think it is crazy to apply now to completely different market and time.

What has to be done is really hard to say. But I think it is again an opportunity for small companies or individuals. Like I never implemented the "cookies bullshit" that EU wants, because EU wants it (but I will have to implement it when Google will demand it, as they demand it now from Adsense members). It is certain that Europe will always blame the others for its own rigidity and impotence. Even now there are no new big international internet companies. Every new EU promising company is bought by the US and grows for the US.