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Senate Mulls Internet Tax Ban - VoIP Exempt?
securitas writes "eWEEK's Caron Carlson reports that this week the U.S. Senate will vote on renewing an Internet tax ban, but voice over IP (VoIP) may be taxed. The bill renews a state/local ban on taxing Internet services like VoIP. The federal government wants to define VoIP as a software application exempt from taxes while most states see it as an alternate form of telephony subject to telecommunications taxes. House and Senate bills that define VoIP as a software application have already been introduced but may not be voted on before the Internet tax vote."
Bunch of money loving fools :/
If they need more money, just [increase] tax on internet connections.
But trying to tax VoIP is just as ridiculous as trying to tax email.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
how are they planning on enforcing this? It's completley pointless.
For instance, Unreal Tournament 2004 has VoIP functionality built-in in order to facilitate communication between teammates. Might it be subject to taxation?
What about GAIM's VoIP plugins? Or Gnomemeeting/Netmeeting?
Are we just talking about apps that mimic a telephone, or are we talking about all VoIP applications?
I don't trust Congress on these matters. I get the feeling that VoIP will end up being broadly defined and some horror stories resulting from the mess.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
or are they proposing to use the proceeds to eliminate internet spam?
tax spam not consumer/user chosen communications... Or do I have to pay tax to say this?
Free Speech?
Are bullets taxed? im pretty sure bullets should have a heavey tax - say 150%? No? thought not, so dont tax the fucking internet you republican dick-head gun toting rednecks!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'm not saying what I think they should do. But I'm going to play devil's advocate and say they might have a point. VoIP isn't the internet. It is a service. VoIP isn't necesarilly an international domain thing. It's really not all that different from any other telephone service. It would be like them placing a 1 dollar a month user-fee on ISP's services. Not the same as putting a sales tax on internet goods, or taxing it based on usage, or charging for e-mails. I beleive the term politicians use is "luxury tax." Would no doubt bring in huge revenues.
Like I said, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
Derek Greene
Skype is a P2P VoIP application that is independant of any central servers, has great quality audio, NAT, etc.
How exactly do they intend to regulate the unregulatable?
Lets see - the large RBOC's and ILEC's have convinced the FCC that UNEP should be killed. God forbid that everyone has access to the infrastructure that your tax dollar helped build. Considering that many of the RBOC's are loosing money on DSL - it makes a lot of sense to not have competition in the area.
These same people have been working very hard and were able to convince some PSC that rate hikes were in order. [This besides the fact that they had highly profitable quarters even during the economic down turn] Thus stuffing the war chests of the big guys, helping them roll out their "loss leaders" in an effort to crush any competition.
Now they are agitating for VoIP with no taxes. Why? Simple. They've finally agreed to come to the party. Many companies have been doing VoIP for some time, and the idea that VoIP would be taxed has been held out, but now that the RBOC's and ILECS all have made major VoIP announcements suddenly we're considering legislation! IMAGNINE THAT!
At VON this year everyone was screaming that the government should take a "hand off approach". This included a rep from the FCC, AT&T legal, california and florida PSD reps. No one wants to "kill the goose that lays the golden egg". From my POV that is ideal. Let us compete and we will crush the inefficient, lazy, technically inept RBOC and ILECS. The problem is that I don't see this hands off approach staying that way. The FCC and california PSC guy hinted that some sort fo universal access fee may be in order. The other thing that was strongly hinted at is that the state's are going to loose a larege source of recouring revenue that they can't afford to loose. so a state tax may be considered.
In the end, I see VoIP taxes heading the same way as our current PSC and FCC. Favor the big guy (ie campaign contributers), and lets not have too much competition. It wasn't more than 2 years ago when somone said that VoIP will take 2 decades to become mainstream. Sprint, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon will all be switching voice at their cores within 7.
This bill is a step in the right direction. Lets see if the congress can keep the playing field even. If they do - the RBOC's and ILECs are in trouble unless they make some fundemental changes to their corporate cultures. I bet they will protect their little fiefdoms - look for modified legislation in the next 12-18 months to give them a leg up. (As if their monopoly's weren't enough)
cluge
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Erm, yeah... except that's a four-year-old HOAX!
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
If they tax our electrons, they should be paid in photons!
"Enclosed is my tax payment - you will find 1 blue LED and a battery. Turn it on and let it glow. At the end of the battery life my internet taxes will be paid in full, in several billion photons."
I think you still might be able to pay taxes in live chickens, but
that would be so unfair to the chickens!
...is to use the recent short-range band (Bluetooth, WLAN, direct phone-phone connections et al) to turn my cell phone into a landline w/wireless, when in range. That would be a real boon for IP telephony. VoIP with headset or specialized IP-capable phones have their use, but if you could use any cell phone the market would explode.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
All this time we keep focusing on how bad IP law is going to keep us in the technological dark ages compared to our more adaptable evolutionary cousins abroad - but really it's looking more and more like the tax-mad politicians are the true enemies of evolution. It was easy to look at the nonsense going on in India with the government attempting to ban IP telephony and criticise, but it appears our own politicians are determined to prove once and for all India (has) had nothing on us.
and the FCC is still in on the act - then will the user licenses have *decency clauses* written into them?
You can see all kinds of examples of how, over the years, our lawmakers have tried to govern all kinds of things that they didn't understand. If you want a good example of how the laws governing the internet will look in fifty years, go wander around among the laws governing the environment for a while, or the regulations under which the FDA operates, or anywhere else that the government tries to regulate a scientific or technical issue. These people are lawmakers, not scientists or engineers, and aside from the fact that they simply do not understand what it is they are trying to regulate, they are not really listening to anyone who does understand either. The primary focus of a lawmakers attentions are on their own wallets, followed by those people who see a profit to be made or lost, and lastly by those blocks of voters who might be able to march together under some doomsday banner of dire predictions. I don't want to sound like I'm advocating anarchy, because some degree of regulation is needed on the internet (think child porn or DDoS attacks) but the more we allow the government to regulate, the more confusing and contradictory the regulations will become. Thinking just in this cae, they might tax VoIP now, with half a dozen exceptions to exempt games for instance, only to have to pass new laws later to close loopholes and make new exemptions, until such a time as when a game-maker may need to pay a lawer a weeks worth of wages just so he can safely publish his work. I can only see internet taxes working as an all or nothing deal if we're going to avoid a tax code that would be 10 times as confusing as the most complicated codes we have now. Think some flat (2% maybe?) tax on all goods and services that would be collected by a federal department and redistributed to the states by percentage of what was actually sold in a state. If we just let the lawmakers go according to whim the resulting tax code will choke anyone who wants to do business with or on the internet. Not that I'm fond of the idea of another tax or another governmentl department to administer it.....
... this guy gets paid by the acronym.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
How could they do this without monitoring all data streams extensively, and determing somehow "gee, this is voice and this isn't", etc. And tracing them to individual IP addresses? Just throw some random numbers at the whole internet? I mean, speech (and video) between people over the net has been around a long time, CUSEEME as an example.
This sounds more like some sort of random tax that still won't allow what you want to do with your machine, just like the blank CD tax/fees you pay still won't let you completely off the hook with the RIAA MPAA goons and their pet legislation they inspired, even though it was supposed to.
The only way to keep the net free is just that, no taxes on it for any reason. It's slippery slope, once the government gets a money toe hold on it, eventually it will be highly regulated.
And speaking of taxes and unnecessary fees, why can't we get unbundled POTS yet? Why do I have to pay all these ridiculous fees I see on my phone bill to use a phone line just for the net? I don't use it for anything but net access. I certainly can't get unbundled copper, no negotiations there as far as I know without jumping through a ton of ridiculous hoops and expense. I guess what I am asking is, why can't I be my own isp with just a pair of copper wires, why do I need all the extra fees and go through someone who has a fat pipe, is there any technical reason they can't throw some switches, etc, and just let me use PPP? Is this an artifical blockade they put on it? I honestly don't know the answer to that, not familiar enough with how it is set up at the local telco or how this is arranged beyond getting an assigned IP and/or domain name and IP. Would it be technically possible to just buy an IP directly, and eliminate a couple of middleman steps? I've never worked at an ISP or anything so I don't know what steps are involved with access and hardware and software and protocols.
... or imagine no regulation on the internet, and using DDoS attacks to get rid of child porn.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
So what do states like mine (South Carolina) really want?
Our govenor says that promoting small business and entrepreneurs is the key while attracting big companies like BMW.
Yet, taxing VoIP is against the sentiment entirely. I know that telephony (especially on the business side) is a VERY expensive part of my overhead. I plan on switching to Vonage soon. Taxing it would make it less of an advantage vs regular phone service.
So either our goverments want it easier to for small business to succeed due to the reduction of overhead costs that the internet brings or they don't.
It goes the same for taxes in general over the internet. Not having to collect and send in sales taxes is HUGE relief of manpower!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
*You* don't. Most people use one though because most people have no idea how to set up their own SMTP server. You doing that would be like someone using a private courier rather than the US Postal Service. Make sense?
...so when everybody you'd like to hit with this tax (i.e. spammers) would do so, haven't you then simply created a massive, complex system with lots of international tax rules, money transfers and administration for absolutely no gain at all???
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If it interfaces with the PSTN its a telecommunications medium and should be taxed accordingly because it is a PSTN service.
If its a point to point connection between two users with no PSTN involvement the baby bells can go jump.
Fair? I think so.
I think people are being to broad with their interpretation of VOIP. When I think of VOIP I think of SIP, H232, Telephony over IP, etc. I don't consider say, Unreal Tournament 2004's voice support as VOIP.
In that regard, if they want to tax VOIP providers as they do normal telco's I don't have a complaint, I'd assume that'd just be a given. But if they want to try and tax every program that could possibly send speech over the net then I'd be a bit annoyed (to put it lightly)
I wouldn't consider Skype, Teamspeak, etc as VOIP from my point of view, I think of them as just another chat program. If it can tie into my phone, or someone elses, then it's VOIP.
My Vonage account has recently had a new $1 tax added to it, so...
New Dialog Box on Windows:
Attention:
Click here to pay your on-line tax of [$189.47] for 50 GB of music downloads... (PayPal) (Visa) (MasterCard)
"House and Senate bills that define VoIP as a software application have already been introduced but may not be voted on before the Internet tax vote."
;).
I wonder how they will collect the tax on an open source / free software version of a VoIP application?
15% of $0.00? Here's your 'tax' Mr./Ms. senator
I'm not sure if tax on a particular kind of software has ever been done before? I don't think it will work out that great in this case.
Taxes are used by the government to level a playing field, reduce the impact or reduce the desirablity of something. Liquor and cigarettes are heavly taxed to help pay for the gov. services used because of those products and to reduce their desirablity.
With the Internet you have a slightly different problem. The gov wants you to be using it, for a number of reasons. But they also see it as a revenue generator for them or at least a place that revenue can be lost because of switching from other revenue generators. I.e.. sales tax and now communication taxes. But the problem is they don't understand what the Internet is, so they keep arguing about whether or not to tax this part of it, or some other part of it. But this is sheer stupidity. The 'Net has yet to fully define itself. It keeps on morphing every day into some differnet functionality. Who would have thought when the 'Web came into being, in the 80's that it would be used to affect the music industry.
The only thing certain in this life is death and taxes. The Internet or portions of the Internet are going to get taxed, but how is the big problem.
In a related story SBC is suing ATT for avoiding fees associated with VoIP call transportation. Apparently SBC doesn't mind VoIP as long as they get paid for using their infrastructure or is it that SBC sees VoIP as a threat to their LD and Local services?
Here is the full article for those of you too tired to click through:
SBC Sues AT&T Over Internet Phone Fees
Fri Apr 23, 4:56 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - SBC Communications Inc., (NYSE:SBC) the second-largest U.S. local phone company, has sued long-distance giant AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T) claiming it avoided paying at least $141 million in connection fees for calls carried partly over the Internet.
The lawsuit by SBC, filed in a St. Louis federal court on Thursday, follows a ruling by federal regulators a day earlier that AT&T was improperly deeming long-distance calls it carried over the Internet as local calls and paying local phone companies lower fees than normal.
SBC "seeks not only to recover the exchange access charges that AT&T has unlawfully avoided -- which SBC estimates to be at least $141 million and possibly much more -- but also to enjoin AT&T from perpetuating its unlawful conduct," the lawsuit said.
An AT&T spokeswoman said the company did not comment on pending lawsuits, but that it would defend its case vigorously.
The decision by the Federal Communications Commission was seen as a win for local phone companies like SBC, as the FCC rejected AT&T's argument that calls that travel even partially over the Internet are not subject to higher FCC-mandated access charges.
AT&T criticized the FCC's ruling when it was released, and told analysts on Thursday that it did not expect to have to pay back charges from the ruling. It also said additional costs from the ruling would be less than $100 million a year, compared with the $9 billion a year it usually pays local phone companies for connection charges.
The FCC sought to distinguish AT&T's tactic from other Internet phone services, based on technology known as voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP. Those services offer phone calls over high-speed Internet connections, at a far lower cost than traditional phone service.
AT&T's strategy converts traditional phone calls to data so they can be carried on its Internet backbone, and was not noticeable to consumers
If VOIP starts being taxed in the USA, I predict VOIP companies will move their operations overseas.
Joe Consumer and his buddies in the USA will then download their VOIP software from Europe, Asia, Australia, and route their calls through VOIP servers located overseas.
Wouldn't this make it a bit more difficult for the USA to impose a tax on VOIP?
smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you're up to
As for the emergency calls, that's rather easy. Just have an encrypted "address card" sent upon connection. If not encrypted then at least signed.
And when you're using your laptop on the road and call 911, they should go to your home or office? No, I don't think so.
Ditto if you're at home but happen to be VPNing in to work - and the emergency services go to your work.
And then there's Joe Random User. Requiring him to set up an address as part of his internet install (or even his internet phone install) complicates the process. So many of them won't set it up. And others will set it up wrong - and not find out until they call for an ambulance and it doesn't come. And others will be suspicious that they're buying into a "caller ID" that might give out their ADDRESS to people they call. Or to people who call THEM. Even if it doesn't.
And it also puts your physical address on the machine in a well-known place. How long until some stalker cracks his target's machine and comes for her? Or the latest spammer worm carries an additional payload that creates a mailing address database for the spammer - LOTS of bucks in selling THAT one.
Sorry, I don't think that dog hunts.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That was a confusing post. Here are the acronyms in the order they were presented. Now if someone would just say what they mean in this context. I found several possibilities for some of them.
;)
RBOC: Regional Bell Operating Company
ILEC: Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers
FCC: Federal Communications Commission
UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme??
DSL: Digital Subscriber Line
PSC: ??
VoIP: Voice of IP - Internet Phone calls
VON: Voice Over Net coallition
PSD: ??
POV: Point of View
Hopefully someone can tell me if I've got those terms right and what the missing ones stand for. If not I guess I'm SOL.
The original article starts:
This is a violation of the interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution which grants the Federal government only the power:
The 14th Amendment, which many have attempted to extend to totally eliminate all state soveriegnty, has, for example, been interpreted not even to protect basic enumerated rights. An example is, the right kee and to bear arms with military utility. The federal courts have ruled States have a right to violate this enumerated right because the bill of rights doesn't fall under any of the enumerated powers of the Constitution, nor does it fall under any of the specifically mentioned rights to be protected under the 14th Amendment. See Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, 695 F. 2d 261 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 863 (1983).Seastead this.
Just have an encrypted "address card" sent upon connection.
Encryption doesn't give any security, since the DEcryption routine and key has to be present in every set of 911 support software in the country. Only a matter of time until that's compromised. (Not to mention that the need to keep it secret creates a barrier against authors of open-source 911 software authors.)
Better would be a "send address" function at the user's option. But that doesn't solve the problems with mobile and VPN users I mentioned previously.
So the address has to come from the network and the VoIP bridging service.
Getting it from the network carries risks of its own. In principle it could be accessed by governments and used to find the address of ANY connection, destroying anonymity. Imagine its use by a totalitarian government hunting down readers of "forbidden" information and contributors to a dissident blog.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Apparently, the local phone companies are scared shitless because the internet is capable of destroying their stranglehold on the telecommunications market."
The phone companies might hurt for the short run, but they still seem to own the vast majority of the connections on which the internet (and thus VoIP) ultimately operate.
People creating their own interconnected wireless internet networks will probably hurt them more in the long run. Get a large enough tower you can transmit to people like a pirate TV or radio station.
Because it'd be near impossible to meter, it's unreasonable to expect VOIP-to-VOIP traffic to be regulated and taxed. However, VOIP which peers with the PSTN (i.e. the phone company) is a much easier target. But aren't taxes already being collected here? For each phone number assigned to a VOIP device, the party providing you with service (i.e. voice ISP, such as Vonage) needs to get a PRI or similar hookup to the phone system. Doesn't that get taxed? And what about sales tax? An argument could be made that wherever the VOIP provider has POPs, they could charge sales tax. And don't I already pay taxes to my ISP for my internet connection?
I'm not against taxes - I'm against excessive, stupid taxes. Like paying an E911 tax, only to find out that the money collected is going towards office supplies, dry cleaning, cars, etc. Or paying over 20% tax on my cell phone service.
When they ruled against Maryland saying that a state cannot tax a federal agency because..... (and it applys to everything) "the power to tax is the power to destroy."
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
The key can be found in the article...
--
"It's the threat and the possibility that all of these services could migrate to the Internet," said Alexander's aide. "As services migrate to the Internet, you could bundle these services, and the telecom taxes that states currently collect they could no longer collect." -- Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
--
This is simply about the states being afraid of losing a very lucrative revenue source. The thought behind it has nothing to do with with the implementation, the technical reasons for VoIP deployment, or even whether its a Bad Idea (TM) or not. Its all about maintaining tax revenue for the state.
There are legions of accoutants, lawyers, and beauracrats in every state (hell, in every level of government) looking for things that might be taxed to generate revenue. It has nothing to do with whether the tax is smart, appropriate, or germane. Its about finding sources of revenue to support state spending.
Are we just talking about apps that mimic a telephone, or are we talking about all VoIP applications?
The sane thing to do would be to tax subscription VoIP/PSTN bridging. (PSTN = Public Switched Telephone Network.)
VoIP computer-to-computer connection is just another IP application. It lets you communicate with another computer user - but so does just about EVERY OTHER application on the Internet. (VoIP just happens to transmit voice, rather than the text streams of chat and IM, the compositions of email/blogs/web pages, the reference information of DNS, the "computer-as-person conversations" of telnet/rlogin/ssh, and so on.)
PSTN bridging creates a connection to the legacy telephone network, completing the emulation of the formaer service. You can use the "pay phone" model of outgoing calls only or the "customer line" model of a subscription that accepts PSTN calls to an assigned phone number. While it does have an Internet component, there's no question that it also has a PSTN component. It's also pretty clear that the PSTN component is the dominant functionality and the Internet component is just a new kind of "phone line" transport between the PSTN to the user.
So a logical thing to do would be to apply the tax to VoIP/PSTN bridging. This would leave pure IP applications untaxed, including computer-to-computer VoIP calls. And it would answer the fairness objections from the telephone companies.
= = = =
Alternatively, now might be a good time to review the tax structure on telephone service.
The tax to support the 911 service got hung on them as a convenient place to put it. The service was only available to telephone subscribers, so there was SOME fairness in that. But these days practically EVERYONE is a telephone subscriber, so fair allocation of the cost is not as much of an issue. And 911 is REALLY part of the dispatch functions of the emergency services (a convenience to replace fire/police callboxes and separate phone numbers for each service). It's not a necessary function of the telephone network. In fact, it's an expensive service provided BY the telephone network TO the emergency services. Shouldn't it be paid for out of the budgets of the services, rather than by a tax on phones (whose collection is ALSO a drain on the phone companies)?
Similarly, the rest of the taxes on phones are either related to specific telephone issues (funding regulatory boards, funds transfer between long-distance and local cariers related to the monopoly breakup, buying equipment for phone number portability) or yet another hidden government money grab on the consumer's pocket book for "public purposes" ("universal" and "lifeline" service subsidies, federal and local taxes). It's clearly appropriate to charge the phone-company specific fees to the phone company customers (and to VoIP/PSTN bridging customers SOLELY to the extent that they fund a function used by the bridgers as well). As for the rest: since the government isn't going to tax the Internet, it should take those taxes off the phone companies, too.
If the government wants to subsidize phone service for the poor, roll it into the welfare system (rather than soaking the other phone customers just because there's some mental resonance). If the government just wants to suck money out of the pockets of the citizens, lump it in with the other general taxes.
As for "universal service", why should the people in the cities pay for phones for people in the country? People in the cities moved there, and pay MUCH higher living costs, in order to be in closer communication with other people. If somebody in the boonies wants a wire strung 50 miles to get a benefit of city living in his lower-cost country location, let him pay for it. (Or get a cell phone and a cradle, and maybe a high-gain directional antenna, if he's within some services' coverage area.) There's no "Internet universal service" - and the government is trying to DEregulate local phone service and allow othe
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Are bullets taxed? im pretty sure bullets should have a heavey tax - say 150%? No? thought not, so dont tax the fucking internet you republican dick-head gun toting rednecks!
Last time I looked it was the Republicans that were trying to keep the taxes off the Internet (free market, create wealth, etc.) and the Democrats that were thirsting for another source of tax money.
= = = =
But of course the lefties are ALWAYS accusing their opposition of their own sins. It serves as a preemptive strike (so somebody who later points out the lefties' misbehavior looks like a "No, HE did it!" playground finger-pointer). And they place no value on honesty: Winning the argument with a lie is considered "intelligent" rather than "reprehensible". (I'd have said "dishonest" - but then lefties wouldn't understand that I meant something bad. B-) )
As for "Rednecks": Apparently, despite all their other rhetoric, lefites think racial and ethnic slurs are fair game if directed at the rural working class. (And I bet he either doesn't know or care that the term includes a reference to the assimilated indians and part-indians that form a significant component of it.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...of useage rates. Too many people would complain (righteously) that like the road fuel tax,or your electric bill, or water bill, etc, it should be pay as you use it, which means transfer rate metering of some sort, not a flat rate. I know besides thinking the whole idea is dumb,and I don't want to see it,that IF it was implemented and that if I got charged on my 28.8 connection the same as someone with a cable connection or T-1, etc, that it wouldn't be even remotely fair. IF they want a flat rate,and run the net as some sort of taxed public utility, then bring me decent broadband at the same prices that are charged in areas with several kinds and competition, then it would make more sense and be folloiwng the model we have established for utility service in general already in other areas..
It was easy to look at the nonsense going on in India with the government attempting to ban IP telephony [...]
That's the first I've heard of that. (And it's important to me.)
Do you have a pointer to any articles on it?
thanks
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I thought the government has to first be involved in something before they tax it. The gov't doesn't own any part of the internet, so what is it that allows them to consider taxing it? I use VoIP (Ventrilo) to communite with my team mates during an online game or just for chatting. If I wanted to write some interface to use a VoIP enabled phone with that, would THAT then be elligable for taxation? Taxing the internet is rediculous. I'll be glad to leave the terrible service of my regional baby bell.
Steal This Sig
--> Technically you can start your own internet.
I have thought of things along this line too. Talk about the ultimate Open Source Project - hey kids, let's reinvent the internet but eliminate the mistakes!
A primary design requirement of the current internet was that it should survive a nuclear attack, presumably from another country. The new internet should be designed with the (additional) requirement that it survive financial and civil liberty attacks from our own governments.
People forget (or are too young to remember) that we got by on primative BBS systems for quite awhile and people were reasonably content. A home brew internet is potentially far more interesting and useful than the bulletin boards ever were.
I can imagine a bifurcated world where we have the (commercial) internet as we know it today and an alternative internet akin to what it was before the 1990s corporate takeover. Only the latter will be build with privacy and anonymity features built right into the system not as a bump on the ass afterthought.
Hey, there are open sourced operating systems. Is a network really that much of stretch?
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
Don't forget you don't have to tax EVERYONE or regulate EVERYONE. All you have to do is tax and regulate the biggest players in the field and soon no one else wants to enter the game. It might be impractical to tax every individual, but even India has managed to tax certain players. Make it too expensive to organize properly, and the technology will be doomed.
Remember: Napster didn't "invent" p2p, or mp3, or swapping ripped CDs. All Napster did was commoditize the service. And once commoditized, it was easily squashed. A dozen others may have taken its place, but the only profit left in the industry seems to be made by exploiting user's computers in unethical manner. The powers in charge are determined that p2p facilities of any sort are too be unprofitable until they can figure out how to recover their monopoly controls - and government is all about control. One hand washes the other because both are bound to the same chain...
cans the manham.
Soo here comes yet another techlaw that's mired in the feds pretending not to want to tax as a metered tax but would rather have a flat rate tax, the states of course what the oposit.
And they wonder why people tell them both to go to hell?
If I release a free VoIP app, how could they expect to collect taxes on it? It'd just be sending an audio stream to another computer while at the same time receiving another stream back from that computer. Why tax just one form of two way communication? Especially the one most closely matching resembling speech, as in the free speech guaranteed by the first amendment? They wouldn't tax it just for the money. They'd tax it as a sneaky way to require call logging. Private voice communications would be a form of tax evasion. And by classifying VoIP as a type of telephone communication, they could require that all encrypted VoIP apps support wiretapping.
Was that a haiku?
You were one syllable short
Better luck next time
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Just what does this cover anyway? Because I found out this year, retroactively, when I was doing my New York State taxes that they had a section for stuff you bought over the internet so you could pay tax on that, or they had a standard amount they would charge you if you didn't itemize(yeah, right, I didn't know to itemize untill a month after the year ended!). Is this legal...? I wondered about this at tax time, it seemed shady because one, they are basically retroactively taxing a year on purchases over the net, and two - at least till this year, wasn't there a BAN on internet taxes?
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Regardless of what current internet practices are, States will have an incentive to tax -- and can set up their own regulations that encourage intrastate-only traffic while discouraging interstate traffic. For an analogy, there are States that raise most of their revenue with a sales tax and charge a "use tax" for products purchased in other States. This affects people living on the State-border towns quite a bit.
Seastead this.
I NEVER vote for the same party twice in a row. The same beurocrats run the show no matter who you elect, so you're only chosing the window dressing. The ones you elect are merely the ones who stuff their snouts in the public trough and point their asses at you.
Two or three terms of successive government change motivates the parties to show an interest in pleasing their consituents again.
Ignore the ocean of negative publicity flowing from politicians about their rivals in the lead up to the election as it's invariably black-tongued lies or half-truthes (also lies). Focus instead on the thimble full of promises they make to you.
I have a proposal. In the 3 months leading up to an election no politician should be allowed to comment on an opposing party in promotional material. They should only be allowed to talk about what THEY will be doing for YOU. This is ALL that matters. If there are genuine problems with a contenders morals, the press will pick it up and have a field day. I would be more inclined to trust a reporter than a politician, and I would be more inclined to trust a rattlesnake than a reporter. hmmmmm......
I've seen some of what Bush has allowed his lackeys to say about Kerry. Bush has no respect for Kerry as a veteran or a man. I suppose most draft dodgers are often quite disrespectful of vets. Probably misplaced shame I'd say.