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PS Project: €0.10/GB tax to fund the networks

LaRedaction Posted messages 850 Registration date   Status Administrator Last intervention   -  
brupala Posted messages 111153 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -
Parti Socialiste
The recent proposal by the Socialist Party to tax data traffic at 0.10 euros per gigabyte to fund networks has sparked widespread controversy. However, it was noted that the tax would target large traffic generators such as Netflix, Google, Akamai, Meta, and Amazon, which are responsible for 47% of internet traffic in France. Yet the implementation of this proposal is complex, with significant legal, technical, and regulatory challenges. What is your opinion on this proposal? Do you consider a financial contribution from large digital platforms to the funding of telecom networks to be fair?
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5 answers

  1.
    brupala Posted messages 111153 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   14 450
     

    Hi,

    from my side I have never heard of this ridiculous project, and, I don’t know if it’s the article or the author of the bill who is incompetent, but it shouldn’t get very far in this form.

    First you need to know how these streams are distributed: For example, Netflix installs servers within the operators' networks that distribute it, so that every content downloaded by the clients comes from a server located on the French Internet and not from abroad; these servers are synchronized with each other via private, off-internet links.

    Besides, wanting to install geoblocking on the internet, which by construction has none, is totally incompetent.

    Then, of course, we must not discriminate, even if it is true that these big providers also discriminate in their own way, because they can multiply servers as close as possible to users; companies like Akamai are precisely for that, by the way (hello CCM?).

    On the other hand, this also aligns with my opinion on the substance of video distribution on the internet: for me, television has no business on the internet, which is built for peer-to-peer exchanges; broadcasters of TV channels should be forced to build their own network instead of hogging the internet.

    From their side, in fact, the operators don’t care: for them, it’s not the volume transmitted that costs them anything, as long as they have the network in place, they can transmit as much as they want without investing much more, at least in the fixed network, because in the mobile network, whose capacity is much more limited, it’s another story and here the abusive use of a shared resource is really penalizing for other users.

    If there were a law with this philosophy, it would therefore have to be limited to mobile networks, but leave the fixed network untouched; it has built itself very well on its own without particular taxes, but with subsidies to balance the territorial distribution of fiber nonetheless.

    And there you go, there you go, there you have it ....

    But alas, how tedious the line spacing is !!

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  2. Meedip
     

    Let’s be realistic, who will pay in the end?

    Taxing at every turn is the only, truly French solution... what a success!

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  3. Calou
     

    Another tax!!!! Instead of cutting expenses... and who will ultimately pay? The users...

    The Internet was born free and must remain so!????

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    1. brucine Posted messages 24915 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 180
       

      Netflix or Amazon are not strictly speaking free Internet streams, and even when content is freely accessible, transporting it incurs a cost that, for now, is passed on through subscribers to operators.

      For the rest, nothing new under the sun; it is the DNA of certain political parties to constantly invent new taxes and levies without ever asking what increase in consumers' purchasing power, which would not itself be artificially managed, would allow them to be financed.

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    2. brupala Posted messages 111153 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   14 450
       

      Libre does not necessarily mean free.

      If users do not hesitate to buy TV content, they can also pay to transport it.

      The logic is that this tax would be passed on to subscriptions.

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    3. wykaaa
       

      I am an old Internet user. I have used email and discussion groups since 1985 for my work when Internet did not even exist yet in France. I know the entire history of Internet since its beginning in 1969 (4 computers connected together in California). I am for total neutrality of the Internet; otherwise it’s an open door to taxes creeping in according to usage. So I am totally opposed to a tax on fluxes of any kind.

      The French politicians, as usual, still don’t understand the "philosophy" of the Internet.

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      1. brucine Posted messages 24915 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 180 > wykaaa
         
        There is no longer a philosophy of the Internet somewhere (forgetting in passing that at the beginning ARPANET was a military network) and it no longer has the aim of disseminating knowledge. Network resources are indeed occupied by broadcasters, notably series whose cultural added value is not necessarily proven, but also by “influencers” on YouTube or on social networks, in short, sandwich-men, not to mention the official advertisements or “advertorial” tutorials that jump on you everywhere as soon as you search the Internet (and also on this forum).
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  4. LoupVif41 Posted messages 2 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
     

    We already pay for our subscription which provides unlimited internet access, so the PS wants to overcharge us .....

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  6. Patrickf64 Posted messages 59 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   17
     

    I pay a monthly subscription that includes unlimited use of the Internet network whether fiber or not, so I won’t pay a single cent more to all these government crooks who are fatly paid to do nothing but propose stupid projects to tax the French a little more who are already squeezed every day, not only by the rising cost of living, food, fuel, insurance and the best of it, it feels like going back to the time of lords where we had to pay tithes whether we had money or not

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    1. brucine Posted messages 24915 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 180
       

      We must read and think before grumbling.

      We all have an Internet subscription which, even if it is unlimited, does not include free access to certain paid platforms.

      The government, whether we like it or not, is not responsible, in particular, for the price of foodstuffs and is only responsible for decrees and orders since, in the name of the separation of powers, laws are drawn up by the two elected chambers.

      The bill in question, if it were to be put to a vote, has no chance of succeeding because, as far as is known, the Socialist Party does not have a majority.

      Even if that were the case, it would probably be rejected by the European Commission and, in any case, since it mainly concerns foreign flows, it would be perfectly inapplicable.

      It should finally be noted that the taxable potential is not the final consumer but the sender of these flows, even if, where possible (contents on subscription), it would probably not fail to pass on this tax.

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    2. brupala Posted messages 111153 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   14 450
       

      Hi,

      nobody is obliged to subscribe to a TV stream, because that’s basically what it’s about, since it’s not ISPs who can tax TV, due to their neutrality obligation, but a government can, with the caveat that it won’t be able to identify these streams on the internet.

      To such an extent that it is forced to threaten public DNS resolvers in order to impose its blocking laws.

      That’s why I’ve been using my own resolver for a long time, unbound.

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    3. flo88 Posted messages 28492 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   5 170
       

      Welcome to a dictatorship.....

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      1. brupala Posted messages 111153 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   14 450 > flo88 Posted messages 28492 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention  
         

        Long for all that is TV to disappear from the internet, to be pasted onto a separate network, and for them to fund it themselves as they please and regulate it as this way the singing.

        Unlimited access to the internet, but not to television.

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