Posted on 07/14/2004 5:04:19 PM PDT by mcar
It was five years ago today... A tax on email to improve the lot of those less fortunate than ourselves? It's either a very bright idea or the product of some seriously fantasist thinking:
UN proposes email tax
By Tony Smith Published Wednesday 14th July 1999 11:46 GMT
The United Nations wants email users to subsidise the extension of the Internet to Third World countries, according to a report released by the UN Development Programme earlier this week.
Essentially, the report calls on governments to introduce legislation that would require Net users to pay a tax of one US cent on every 100 emails they send. Such is the volume of email that, had such a scheme been introduced in 1996, it would have generated $70 billion in that year alone. Given the quantity of spam we're now all being subjected to, the mind boggles at how much revenue would be generated now.
Whatever funds were generated, however, it would be enough to give developing countries the help they need to catch up with developed nations and so "offset inequalities in the global community", as the report puts it. A worthy goal, for sure, but we can't help wondering whether the real winners here would be the telecoms companies who would be contracted to create all these extra connections.
However, the report argues that leaving the expansion of the Net into the Third World to market forces will simply not allow the technology to spread far enough sufficiently quickly. Still, the report admits the UN can't enforce such a tax itself, and with most Western governments keen to encourage Net use in order to promote their countries as preferred territories for e-business, they're unlikely to introduce such a tax unilaterally.
Our experts predict that were such a tax introduced today, then the revenue generated by penis enlargement spam emails alone would be enough to buy a laptop for every child in the developing world, leaving the $90bn per year harvested from 419 junk mail to completely eradicate poverty and disease by 2010. Time, we feel, to reconsider this radical proposal. ®
When hell freezes over...
I can just see myself in 50 years saying to my grandchildren, well there was this thing called the INTERNET and we could send these things called E-MAIL. The UN decided to tax it so I stopped using it.
Like hell this will ever work....of course if they try to get it enacted, that might get us to kick the UN off of our soil....
stay safe
I am sure the money will be well spent and not siphoned off by the elite of these third world countries to deposits in NY, Hong Kong, London and Switzerland. This is DOA!!!
If I were to post my true feelings about this, I would immediately be banned from FR and probably banned from the UNternet, too.
Now that is what my New England friends would call "bass ackwards" thinking.
- First of all the "volume" is attributed greatly to spam, and always has been. It has gotten ridiculous as of late but spam was always part of the factor.
- Second, that being said, any 'tax' would reduce considerably the spam, list mails, etc. that would be sent (which is a good thing) but it is silly to use this 'volume' as a forecast for lost tax revenue without factoring that in.
- Lastly, with the statement starting with "Given the quantity of spam we're now ...", one is given the impression that this tax will have no effect on reducing.
I have always thought an email 'postage' of, say, some fraction of a cent per email piece would be a good spam eliminator/ controller. Perhaps this might be a good cause (third world) and benefit (reduction of spam) here.
But the fact that this article is
1-written so blindly to any benefits of the tax to those being taxed,
2-ignoring any reduction in volume from such a tax AND
3-proposed by the UN ...
well, let's just say I would think this would be a detriment to the INTERNET, would open the door to wrongful charging and is proposed by an irresponsible body. Got my NO vote.
This is a joke, right?
From my cold dead computer....
The faceless leeches behind the report can argue anything they wish.
However, I would love the opportunity to be locked up in a room with the dweeb who makes this assertion for "one on one" discussion on the validity of the statement.
Well, *my* experts predict that were such a tax introduced today in Africa, then the revenue generated by Nigerian third world banking creditor scams alone might actually be able to buy AIDS drugs for their own people instead of useless laptops they don't need.
The French nobles used to clip a little bit of the precious metals in their coins. Over time, this minor clipping of the currency became larger and far more salient. National banks have invisiblized this "Tobin" tax.
You think National, state and local tax appetitites are high? Imagine a world forum that really doesn't like you at all - let alone answer in any way to you. We fought our first and inaugaral war over this.
Just so long as they triple tax those emails from General Mbabwe Tumba of the Ivory Coast who keeps requesting my account number and asking to wire me money.
Email for Food
Kofi's first revenue enhancement scheme
20th century thinking. Trying to tax email would be like squeezing a tube of toothpaste with an infinite number of holes in it. In a heartbeat there would be new transfer protocols and new names. It would be an information arms race they could not win.
This is one of the reasons why open source software must survive.
Screw the Third World, too. They make enough money on the "Dear Friend: I am the former Treasury Secretary of Togoland, and I need you help to move $250,000,000 (Million) out of the country..." spams.
The Net would be a better place if all the fiber and all the cables to .cn,.hk.,.kr,.tw,.ru etc would suffer backhoe and dredger accidents....all the "Bulletproof" spam mail and web providers could talk to themselves over their intranet.
So if I understand it right these people can't afford to feed themselves or educate themselves but we are supposed to buck up for internet access so they can visit Michael Moore's website and understand they are being starved so Unical can build a pipeline through Usama Bin Laden's living room? Makes sense to me
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