from the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLOyChP2AWA&t=34 dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
FCC panel wants to tax Internet-using businesses and give the money to ISPs
A Federal Communications Commission advisory committee has proposed a new tax on Netflix, Google, Facebook, and many other businesses that require Internet access to operate.
If adopted by states, the recommended tax would apply to subscription-based retail services that require Internet access, such as Netflix, and to advertising-supported services that use the Internet, such as Google and Facebook. The tax would also apply to any small- or medium-sized business that charges subscription fees for online services or uses online advertising. The tax would also apply to any provider of broadband access, such as cable or wireless operators.
The collected money would go into state rural broadband deployment funds that would help bring faster Internet access to sparsely populated areas. Similar universal service fees are already assessed on landline phone service and mobile phone service nationwide. Those phone fees contribute to federal programs such as the FCC's Connect America Fund, which pays AT&T and other carriers to deploy broadband in rural areas.
The state tax proposal comes from the FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), a group criticized by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo—who quit the committee—"for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public." BDAC members include AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, other ISPs and industry representatives, researchers, advocates, and local government officials.
The BDAC tax proposal is part of a "State Model Code for Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment and Investment." Once finalized by the BDAC, each state would have the option of adopting the code.
An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:10PM (11 children)
The ISP's ALREADY charge *extra* for business users.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:15PM (7 children)
The ISP's also claim that the Internet companies benefit from network access, conveniently ignoring that fact that they pay for access.
Also ignoring the fact that they have already been paid (by taxpayers) to supply internet access to rural areas, but then often don't supply it. Is this regulatory capture?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pipedwho on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:12PM (3 children)
The ISPs are also ignoring the fact that people pay the ISP to be able to access the internet *because* of these sites. If these sites didn't exist, the ISP wouldn't be able to charge the exorbitant fees they charge in some places, as there would be much less benefit to the user to even have internet access.
This is coming about because ISPs are being conflated with traditional 'cable' style media providers that are doing it tough now that sites like Netflix and other online media portals exist. And because some of the these cable providers are ALSO acting as ISPs they are crying foul.
Reality is that an ISP is not a cable media provider and should be subsidised using the old cable business models. This is pure money grab that can only exist due to corrupt regulatory capture.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:14PM
Oops. That should read 'should NOT be subsidised by'.
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Monday December 17 2018, @02:23AM (1 child)
It's so much fucking worse though. They're partly talking about giving it to the ISPs, but the bullshit reason they cloak it in is offensive as fuck. All the telephone calls are already charged USF fees, and they're talking about the same bullshit system. It was supposed to help out libraries, rural areas, etc. The telecoms never gave shit back for all the entitlements we gave them to put their equipment on. All that subsidization went solely for their profits, and the USF fees are a fucking joke for that reason.
If that AT&T assmunch wants every business with a cablemodem/dsl modem paying taxes to him, then all libraries have free access, no data caps, and bandwidth sufficient for 30 people to perform research at any one time. I fully expect all public schools to have a similar hookup, and by god, so should churches and other NGO's that benefit the community. They will have to bring Internet out to the rural areas too, if they want the taxes.
This is no different than that stupid media tax on all blank DVD/CDs that goes to Big Media, which of course, doesn't actually make it to the hands of the artists. It's just an extra slush fund for hookers and blow. All those organizations that purport to help the artists, seem to just help themselves.
ISPs and these taxes will be no fucking different.
ADD on to that the fact we already pay for the bandwidth (both the server and client separately) and that real impositions caused by peer & transit agreements are solved with CDN tech. What the ISP doesn't like, is that Netflix/Amazon/Google make their own data centers and CDNs inside their network to help alleviate the burden. The greedy motherfuckers aren't content with selling the data center bandwidth, and instead want to force Netflix and others into expensive bandwidth agreements instead, or force the usage of their own data centers.
None of the benefits will lower consumer prices either.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday December 17 2018, @06:40AM
Here in Canada, there is a push by the media companies to have an internet tax on any traffic over 15 GBs a month, because you know, only (legal) streamers use over 15 GBs a month and it seems the streaming companies aren't paying the artists enough, so a tax to go to industry to theoretically pay the artists that Netflix etc aren't paying enough. Fucking stupid, right along with their move to be able to block any sites that they claim are helping pirates and the move to remove network neutrality. Bad enough with the Americans pushing all the IP bullshit from the TPP.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:11PM (1 child)
the thing is , every time I read something palpably annoying I also think "is this just to seem reasonable later on? What else is being hidden?"
The problem (IMHO) is not that this government is corrupt or incompetent - they *ALL* are, and depending on your social place, appears better or worse depending on your needs.
The reason we are at "peak stupid" (or perhaps approaching it /s ) is that several decades of career politicians and dogmatic party allegiance has divided the population into adjoint sets of capture social subjects...
Then again "never attest to malice that can be adequately explained by incompetence"....
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Monday December 17 2018, @12:10AM
Then again "never attest to malice that can be adequately explained by incompetence"....
No, please, you have that backwards [cia.gov]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Informative) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:38PM
No, it's flat out corruption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:03PM (1 child)
Yes, but this time they're going to extend access. *fingerscrossed*
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:30PM
Hahahhahahahahhahahahhahhahahahahahhahahahhah!!!!!! No, seriously, they'll really, actually, truly, build it out, this time. It won't be like all of the other times where they took all the money, made a minimum of effort and pocketed the rest. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times, I'm a masochist.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:58PM
"The ISP's ALREADY charge *extra* for business users."
Indeed. This looks to me like "We demand you give us all your money. Just because we can."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:39PM (10 children)
Don't let the door hit you on your way out, liberal scum -- rednecks need high-speed internet too.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:48PM
San Jose is full of spics...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:54PM (4 children)
Umm, you do realize your chatbot code has a flipped sign somewhere yes? The contextual algorithm is pretty good, but flipping the meaning sometimes is pretty bad.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:28PM (3 children)
There was also a redundancy in the translation arrays such that one case would always take precedence over the other (and thus be printed), rendering the other case never able to be printed, if I recall. Well shit, it was only a page of code and based off of somebody else's work. And shit, I made two whole arrays of the same words to distinguish capitalized first-letters and non-capitalized first letters. Even if it was more efficient (think lookup tables) it wasn't very elegant. If I weren't so fucking lazy I would make LaDarius II, the Doom-Bringer, and use a lot of that open-source AI shit that's been released into the ecosystem lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:01PM (2 children)
Why what does it do? Serve water?
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:18PM
Only in Flint, MI.
--
All generalizations are false.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:19PM
Serves your mama with the big, Black, COCK.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 17 2018, @12:45AM (2 children)
You're getting sidetracked. Let's go with a specific example. If SN had to start paying this tax, the community would really be the ones having to pay it. We'd have no choice but to pass the cost increase on because we don't have huge piles of cash that we like to roll around naked in. So if a business that isn't profit based is going to pass the cost along to the consumers, what do you think the profit-centric businesses are going to do?
tl;dr This isn't a tax increase on "us", it's a tax increase on you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @07:14PM (1 child)
people need to stop registering their businesses with the government like dutiful fools and start accepting cryptocurrencies. screw their taxes. everyone could easily set aside would-be tax money and create a national response force that deals with any leaches that come knocking.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 17 2018, @10:50PM
As a good southern boy, I'm hard pressed to disagree with the "shoot the revenooers" strategy of economic reform.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:33PM
You realize, that we already paid for it at least once, if not more than once. This is just them asking for more money, because they'll actually do it this time. "Promise"
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:43PM (1 child)
If you don't have anything productive to do, how about watching porn all day like they do at the SEC? In the end, it would be better for everyone.
(Score: 4, Informative) by BsAtHome on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:01PM
But, they want to tax the porn-sites too! That means they will have to pay higher subscription fees to become unproductive. That was not what we were suggesting!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pipedwho on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)
So these ISPs (really just dying cable media providers) want the government to take money from sites providing the media and give it to them instead. Normal ISPs (ie. not cable companies masquerading as ISPs) already benefit from these media sites since they are the proverbial 'killer app' that will get customers paying decent money for high bandwidth internet access.
Back in the day, you could do email, text based messaging/groups, and maybe a few crappy web sites, so the benefit to most people of having lots of bandwidth was low. These days, bandwidth is critical if you want to consume lots of media. And therefore if you want bandwidth you pay for it.
If a tax like this turns up, there will be ZERO benefit to the consumer as the "ISPs" won't drop their rates by the amount they are receiving from the media companies. On top of that, the media companies will pass the cost onto the users. The only benefit is to the big "ISPs" and few a politicians on the take. It's hard to get more anti-consumer than this.
They started out as separated ISPs/infrastructure providers and media studios. Then starting merging, thus bringing this problem on themselves.
This is a great reason to start breaking them back up into the 'cable/media/isp' separate constituent business areas. This may happen naturally if they can't keep grabbing government subsidies to prop up their old cable cartel business model. As separate focused markets they can compete on an even keel with other equally constrained players in those markets.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by pipedwho on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:49PM (1 child)
Now if the FCCs reason for this is that these sites are 'bad' and this is really just a disguised 'sin tax', then by all means tax it. But, don't give the proceeds of the tax back to the ISPs. Earmark it for something useful like schools or hospitals so it actually benefits everyone and not just padding the bonus checks of a few executives so they can maintain their private jets and island mansions.
I love how this is billed as 'the FCC is recommending' and not 'the cable cartels have paid off the FCC to recommend'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @07:18PM
by "schools" you mean huge, centralized, government-controlled slave training centers? no thanks.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:40PM (4 children)
Little Ajit Pai hasn't forgotten who his real masters are! He may roll at Trump's feet, and lick Trump's anatomy, but his real masters are the telecoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:58PM
You make it sound like Trump was dumb enough to appoint someone that's not loyal to him, but other masters.
Then again, thinking a bit, you may be right.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday December 16 2018, @11:50PM
I assumed he had a part in this too, but TFA says otherwise:
So if this is a per-state recommendation, I suspect it will go nowhere. Who the hell is going to vote for someone that wants to tax their
porninternet usage?(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday December 17 2018, @12:00AM
Foreign nations? Alas, it would seem Verizon's regulatory conquistadors have slit their own wrists with Hanlon's razor foolishly failing to answer for the taxation of off-shore websites.
compiling...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday December 17 2018, @12:31AM
The telecoms are Trump's masters also. They told him to appoint Pai. This happens because people vote for (reelect) telecom puppets [gq.com] instead of seeking out somebody else.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @11:02PM (1 child)
That's nice
Since when does a part of the executive branch get to levy taxes?
(Score: 2) by J053 on Tuesday December 18 2018, @12:26AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @03:03AM (1 child)
Try this on for size:
AFTER they have provided broadband to the community in question
AFTER it has been tested and approved by a third party auditing body that has to include observers from the targeted community, demonstrating bandwidth, nondiscriminatory network delivery, high uptime and tight SLA responses
AFTER the price to the consumer has been set at a level such that the participants will willingly pay for it
THEN they get to seek reimbursement for their installation expenses
AND for each year of audited, desirable, effectively priced, well-maintained service they get to seek reimbursement for disproportionate per capita expenses.
No want to build? No moolah. No auditing? No moolah. No good service? No moolah.
All records are public and must be provided, free of charge, under penalty of perjury PLUS forfeiting all monies received for the past ten years, on request to anyone in the effected area, or in a regulatory body (state, local or federal).
But they'd never agree to that.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:36PM
That would mean they would be held accountable for the funds they take. They don't want any of that pesky accountability.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by deimios on Monday December 17 2018, @06:37AM (2 children)
So Google/Netflix/etc. just start their own separate ISPs, or better yet they band together, buy out a small one and expand it, so they pay money to themselves with a side effect of carving out chunks of the cable dinosaur's territory.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Monday December 17 2018, @10:19AM (1 child)
Google Fiber [google.com]. Not available in most areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @02:33PM
I'd pay extra for privacy. They do not seem to provide that as a service.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday December 17 2018, @02:57PM
... If they were regulated as Title II Common Carriers. But they're not, are they, Ajit?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Monday December 17 2018, @04:49PM (2 children)
Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233 (1936).
Minneapolis Star Tribune Company v. Commissioner, 460 U.S. 575 (1983).
"The First Amendment does not permit applying different taxes to different sectors of the press unless there is a countervailing interest of compelling importance that cannot be achieved with any less restrictive means."
I.e. the government cannot impose an Internet tax.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @06:09PM (1 child)
Or what?
Seriously, what's your plan when they impose an internet tax anyway despite the precedent you found? Yellow vest tea party?
Or just bitch a lot and then vote for the D/R team yet again like last time? Maybe send a strongly worded letter and hope for change?
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Monday December 17 2018, @10:19PM
Sue? That's normally what you do when government does illegal stuff. Since I operate a website I would be affected. I have no quarrels about taking it to court if the government wants to impose an illegal tax on me.
The Government is a Bird