Dutch Officials Warn That Big Telecom's Plan To Tax 'Big Tech' Is A Dangerous Dud:
For much of the last year, European telecom giants have been pushing for a tax on Big Tech company profits. They've tried desperately to dress it up as a reasonable adult policy proposal, but it's effectively just the same thing we saw during the U.S. net neutrality wars: telecom monopolies demanding other people pay them an additional troll toll — for no coherent reason.
To sell captured lawmakers on the idea, telecom giants have falsely claimed that Big Tech companies get a "free ride" on the Internet (just as they did during the U.S. net neutrality wars). To fix this problem they completely made up, Big Telecom argues Big Tech should be forced to help pay for the kind of broadband infrastructure upgrades the telecoms have routinely neglected for years.
It's a big, dumb con. But yet again, telecom lobbyists have somehow convinced regulators that this blind cash grab is somehow sensible, adult policy. Dutifully, European Commission's industry chief Thierry Breton (himself a former telecom exec) said last September he would launch a consultation on this "fair share" payment scheme in early 2023, ahead of any proposed legislation.
[...] But they're often not looking at the real problem. Both in the EU and North America, regulators routinely and mindlessly let telecom giants consolidate and monopolize an essential utility. Those monopolies then work tirelessly to drive up rates and crush competition. And, utilizing their lobbying power, they've also routinely gleamed billions in subsidies for networks they routinely half-complete.
[...] If the EU successfully implements such a scheme, you can be absolutely sure the next step will be the U.S., with captured regulators like Brendan Carr (who has been beating this idiotic drum for a few years now) at the front of the parade at Comcast's and AT&T's behest.
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They suggest any move to legislative for a mechanism that funnels direct payments to telecom incumbents would have "immediate and wide-ranging" negative consequences for European businesses and consumer interest — arguing it would hit consumer costs and choice by damaging the diversity and quality of products and services available online, as well as harming competition.
"The risks of introducing network fees are many but ultimately the biggest threats would be to consumer rights, costs, and freedom of choice," they warn. "Users of the internet and mobile networks are the key players in the debate, not content providers. Consumers access content (and thus drive internet traffic and take-up), so the fee would effectively be a fee on consumer behaviour and choice."
[...] Major European telcos, meanwhile, want regional lawmakers to let them extract a network fee from Big Tech platforms whose popular services they claim are responsible for generating the most traffic across their fixed and mobile networks — spinning the ask to double dip (given consumers already paid them for connectivity) as getting tech giants like Meta and Netflix to contribute what they dub a "fair share" towards funding network infrastructure costs.
While the likes of Meta have pushed back that such a fee would actually be arbitrary and unfair.
Thing is, the European Commission, which is responsible for drafting EU legislative proposals, has been sounding suspiciously sympathetic to Big Telco's lobbying.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday March 08, @02:33AM
Every single bit that comes to my home is a bit I paid my ISP their asking price to transport. Every last one of them.
There's nothing left that needs to be paid for.
They have been quite profitable for many years that way, that's why they can afford to pay lobbyists so well.
As for expanding capacity, that's something they are supposed to re-invest profits in to.
If wider availability of data that their customers want to download is a problem for them, it's only because they made promises they weren't prepared to keep and are now being called on them. But there is no question, those are promises they made freely and so is already owed to their customers. That or some big fat multi-year refunds both to customers for capacity they claimed but never had and to the taxpayers for expansion subsidies that were diverted to pure profit.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Snotnose on Wednesday March 08, @02:33PM
cars constitute over 1/3 of the traffic on our roads. They should pay for road maintenance!
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday March 09, @01:22AM (5 children)
The thing that's the most mindboggling is that these companies never even paid for the original infrastructure. It was all built on the public dime.
These companies are so used to getting handouts that they feel that is their due that they can't even fathom that the money they get from customers should go to their infrastructure and not pleasure yachts.
IMO, telecom is an infrastructure that has no business being privatized. It's the same as roads, water, garbage. They are essential services that were built on public funds, and need to be nationalized and managed as the public utility that they are. If a private company wants to run their own thing and needs startup capital to build it, then do it like.... Oh I forget which country now... they get a special gov't startup loan that must be paid back.
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday March 09, @04:14PM (4 children)
Your education no doubt was at least partially paid for with public funds. Does that mean you should be nationalized?
Just because your country had a remarkable lack of wisdom as to fund its own telecom infrastructure rather than delegating that to private industry is a terrible excuse. We no doubt would see the same lack of wisdom in how that infrastructure gets run.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday March 09, @07:14PM (3 children)
I cannot even fathom how someone can be so willfully, mindboggling wrong every single time. It's too the point where when I see your account name, my first thought is "Oh god what idiotic thing is he going to say THIS time?"
It's too consistent to be just because of simple stupidity. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The most polite thing I can assume is that you suffered a stroke at some point in your life and it destroyed some key decision centre in your brain that reverses the final result of any thought process, like some kind of weird NOT gate.
I don't understand why you're even on this site. You should be spending your time on truthsocial, gab, or twitter where you can mingle with like-minded individuals.
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday March 09, @07:38PM (2 children)
Your ignorance drives the process. Remember your earlier post?
The core argument was that telecom shouldn't be privatized because they were "built" with public funds. Well, your country spent public funds on a lot of stuff. What else should be nationalized as a result? The obvious one is education - most countries (including all developed world countries) spend massive amounts on education. Congrats your argument can be used to nationalize people just like it can be used to nationalize businesses you don't like.
Here's my take on the matter. Your country's government has no more business running your telecoms than it does running your life. It doesn't matter what they spent on telecom infrastructure. That's just a sunk cost [wikipedia.org] and is irrelevant to future choices.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday March 10, @09:45PM (1 child)
You expect me to argue with you, yet the entire premise of your argument is so completely nonsensical that there is nothing to argue.
You are literally the definition of "Not even wrong".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 11, @07:55AM
Protip: my argument is an argument from absurdity that follows naturally from the argument you made. The premise is completely ridiculous because your argument is similarly completely ridiculous. And I'll note that the fact that your country's government gave money to a telecom without any guarantee of benefit is a blaring klaxon of its unsuitability for running any sort of business much less a complex one like a telecom.
Leave it to the professionals.