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France Proposes Consideration of Tax On Data Taken Out of EU

Posted by timothy on from the arrogance-of-power dept.

An anonymous reader writes "France has proposed the European Union study taxing companies for transferring personal data outside of the bloc ... The proposal is part of a series France has made ahead of an EU summit next month ... Both transfers of data inside companies, such as sending information on employees from a European subsidiary to a non-EU parent, and between companies are affected. Transfer of personal data often happens when companies outsource certain tasks such as customer sales and help lines to offshore call centres."

73 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Please, LEAVE DATA ALONE by faragon · · Score: 1

    You insesitive French clods: LEAVE DATA ALONE!

    1. Re:Please, LEAVE DATA ALONE by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

      France has been enacting policies that discourage employment and economic growth for years, what makes you think they're going to stop any time soon?

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    2. Re:Please, LEAVE DATA ALONE by crypto2600 · · Score: 1

      Same boneheads who came up with the idea of banning excerpts of news articles in search results...

      --
      Push to test, release to detonate...
  2. Enforcement by Hypotensive · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To enforce this you would need to inspect the contents of encrypted communications. On the same scale as the NSA inspects communications metadata.

    1. Re:Enforcement by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To enforce this you would need to inspect the contents of encrypted communications.

      Not necessarily. Instead, you could offer financial incentives for disgruntled employees to rat on the companies they work for.

    2. Re:Enforcement by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      Or, it'll be like most laws, and enforcement will be on discovery of violation, and depend on the human element.

    3. Re:Enforcement by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      it's actually pretty easy to enforce this for firms that do customer service etc.. if the dude that answers the phone is in malaysia then the data he reads has been exported. sure you can try to hide that too but you're bound to screw it up somehow(and it becomes hard to explain how come your phones are being answered despite you not having personnel inside france to do it.).

      it's only hard to know where exactly the data is in storage.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    4. Re:Enforcement by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      This is why for a very long time it was illegal to encrypt anything in france. Just another reason they were so slow to pick up the internet.

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    5. Re:Enforcement by SJHillman · · Score: 2

      Any time we look to China for a superior product, we really should take a step back and think twice about what we're doing.

    6. Re:Enforcement by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Have you been reading up on the BSA lately?

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    7. Re:Enforcement by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Like paper & gunpowder & printing & i-dont-know the fucking fork?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    8. Re:Enforcement by SJHillman · · Score: 1

      That's an invention, not the product itself. You'll also notice that very few of those are from the last few decades. Given how countries change over time, what they may have done centuries ago is not relevant to the quality of their products today. Like how Made in Japan used to mean utter crap, but now they're now exporting many quality goods - same with South Korea. However, China is largely known for exporting crappy knockoffs and cutting corners today, regardless of what their general quality may have been like in ages past.

    9. Re:Enforcement by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The important thing is that the government of France, a deeply indebted country with 11% unemployment, is focused like a laser beam on giving businesses yet another reason not to locate in their country.

    10. Re:Enforcement by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Metadata. Yeah, keep telling yourself it's just metadata.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    11. Re:Enforcement by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Just like Japan used to be known for only exporting crappy knockoffs in the 1960's and 70's. Hey you know what, maybe this whole industrialization process has something like a life cycle and goes through phases as it matures. If that's true to bad for the Americans, mocking a young industrial base that will grow up to be bigger than all the industry in the world combined. Kinda like the abusive parent realizing that one day his kid is going to be bigger than him...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    12. Re:Enforcement by Barsteward · · Score: 3

      i think its more targeted at the global companies like Google, Amazon etc who do their level best to avoid paying local taxes and don;t necessarily have a large physical presence on the ground. I'm sure Google et al would not to exit any country of france's size.

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    13. Re:Enforcement by SJHillman · · Score: 1

      I don't know, I've been pretty impressed with my Hyundai. Samsung and LG seem to be doing fairly well too.

    14. Re:Enforcement by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "To enforce this you would need to inspect the contents of encrypted communications. On the same scale as the NSA inspects communications metadata."

      Government Surveillance For Sale is even more ominous than Big Brother.

    15. Re:Enforcement by moronoxyd · · Score: 1

      Just like Germany was known for exporting cheap knockoffs in the late 1800s/early 1900s. That's why England established the 'made in Germany' label, to warn customers.

    16. Re:Enforcement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      focused like a laser beam on giving businesses yet another reason not to locate in their country.

      Whereas the US is so welcoming to immigrants? The French unemployment rate was actually considerably higher in the 90s. We do things very differently here, but the French economy is quite strong, and quality of life here is great.

    17. Re:Enforcement by zlives · · Score: 1

      nope the dude's phone call has been imported to your published desktop

  3. Logical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since users are the product, import/export taxes should apply...

  4. Brilliant by holophrastic · · Score: 3, Funny

    I like it. Yes enforcement would be tough, but that's a totally separate thing. This supports privacy but it does much more than that. It supports actually being able to make laws. It's less about "transfer" and more about transfering outside of the legal jurisdiction.

    More importantly, it attributes real value to personal data. That makes sense today, since it's sold as a currency already.

    1. Re:Brilliant by stenvar · · Score: 1

      This supports privacy but it does much more than that.

      No, it invades privacy, and does so massively. Right now, if you want your data in the EU to be safe from the prying eyes of European governments, you can store it outside the country and they are going to have a tough time getting at it. This would make it costly for EU citizens to store their data outside the country, and in addition give EU governments free reign accessing all personal data leaving the country in the guise of "protecting" it.

    2. Re:Brilliant by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      audits aren't actually revealing. you're talking about one of the most confidential processes in the world. You're also talking about a part of the world with some of the best privacy laws. You don't store your data outside of the EU to protect it. You store it inside. Most other places are much worse.

      But again, audits are divulging.

    3. Re:Brilliant by Sique · · Score: 1

      That's simply wrong. To tax the data, no one needs to know the actual data, it's sufficient to know how much it is. The postal service also doesn't know what's in a letter to put a price on delivery.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    4. Re:Brilliant by stenvar · · Score: 1

      That's simply wrong. To tax the data, no one needs to know the actual data, it's sufficient to know how much it is.

      Non-personal data isn't taxable. So, in order to verify that data that is declared as non-personal actually is, the French government needs to be able to look at it.

      Besides, these details aren't going to matter much anyway; the organization responsible for "data protection" and "data taxation" will simply get these powers.

    5. Re:Brilliant by stenvar · · Score: 1

      audits aren't actually revealing

      And you know this... how? Who controls that? Who verifies that?

      you're talking about one of the most confidential processes in the world

      I.e.., you have no idea what they are doing.

      You're also talking about a part of the world with some of the best privacy laws

      No, I'm talking about a part of the world where governments record intimate details of their citizens' lives as part of routine government activities, and can intrude into their private data with impunity, and where they have done so for decades (and actually centuries). Read the news sometimes, even European newspapers report on it every few years, e.g., http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23178284

    6. Re:Brilliant by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      Patents, audits, communication carriers, and many other very finely invasive procedures are subject to incredibly strict laws.

      Most things aren't. Those things are. Read your local laws. Discover that what is protected is actually very well protected. Those are the things that you want to use.

      When it comes to corporate audits, that information is not only not publicized, it's not even internalized in any real capacity. Doing so is directly illegal, and can cause major economic turmoil on a national scale.

      No one opens your mail. In my country, there's only one office permitted to open someone's mail. And the reasons for doing so are incredibly particular. And even then, what that person is actually allowed to do with the knowledge is virtually nothing.

      Sure, when you deal with most things, those protections don't exist. But this isn't one of those most things. It's something that's very well protected. Make sure it stays that way -- by taking advantage of those protections. The more you use them, the more you entrust to them, the stronger they become.

    7. Re:Brilliant by Sique · · Score: 1

      No, it doesn't. It is sufficient to look how the data is used. If the call center knows your contract details when you call it, then the call center knows personal data. If the call center is in a non-EU state, this data was exported and is taxable. If it doesn't appear on the tax declaration, then the company contracting the call center is liable for tax evasion.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    8. Re:Brilliant by stenvar · · Score: 1

      You're both naive and wrong.

      You're naive because European data protection agencies already have wide-ranging powers to access private data, and they wouldn't settle for anything less in this case.

      You're wrong because just because some cases of exports of taxable data could be detected by other means doesn't mean all can; governments generally have complete power to audit anything related to taxes, so they would have that in this case as well.

    9. Re:Brilliant by stenvar · · Score: 1

      No one opens your mail. In my country, there's only one office permitted to open someone's mail.

      Your country almost certainly has numerous exceptions to privacy laws for state security; almost all European nations do. Governments in places like Germany, France, and the UK have always been tapping phone lines and monitoring electronic communications widely.

    10. Re:Brilliant by Sique · · Score: 1

      I am not naive, but I guess here we have two conflicting interests: One is the finance side, which wants to collect as much money as seamlessly as possible, and then there is the law inforcement side, which likes to go on fishing expeditions. The finance side wants the companies to either report as many as possible data exports or alternatively process data at home creating taxable jobs. For this, it doesn't want to make moving data a hassle to anyone, while law enforcement prefers as much as possible insight into the actual data. Given how cash strapped most governments are, I guess, finance will win.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    11. Re:Brilliant by stenvar · · Score: 1

      Data protection is not "law enforcement"; it's usually handled via separate data protection agencies, which often have powers to access private data that go far beyond law enforcement, of course all in the name of "protecting" people's privacy. If the "ministry of truth" is the propaganda ministry, the "data protection agency" is ...

      If the goal is to keep data at home and create jobs, how do you do that? By making it as much hassle as possible to move data out of the country; politicians know that which is why they create laws like this.

      And tax agencies (or other government agencies) don't really care about what the purpose of a law is anyway. They are perfectly happy to enforce laws in ways that counteract their original intent. They create hassles for people and corporations for the simple reason that they have the power to do so. So if politicians want to discourage an activity, a tax on that activity is two-for-one: not only do most people end up having to pay the tax, the enforcement of the tax itself is an additional disincentive to engaging in the activity.

  5. As the gun lobby would say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If legal data transfers are taxed, only illegal data transfers... won't be taxed.

    OK, it needs some work.

  6. Re:So if someone ships books out of the EU... by somersault · · Score: 1

    Try reading more than just the headline next time.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  7. Totally Unworkable by brunes69 · · Score: 2

    So when you work in America and you manage employees in the UK, you now can't know any personal details on them without paying tax? How do you manage their salary? Their vacation time? How do they request parental leave? Now what - this is all hands off, with some kind of delegate relationship? How do you run your business this way.

    Do you know how common this kind of setup is in any multi-national corporation? Reporting chains are not restricted to single countries.

    This kind of thinking is very isolationist.

    1. Re:Totally Unworkable by holophrastic · · Score: 2

      They are currently set up for their own profit. One of the only reasons that they go "multi-national" in the first place is to dodge tax laws.

      But to your question specifically, you can easily have the heads of each country manage vacation schedules.

      I don't think you realize that "outsourcing" means exporting a country's wealth. France is a particularly good example here, because it's very socialist in an amazingly family-friendly manner -- way beyond what you probably think is possible. Forget healthcare, hospitals will re-imburse you for your cabfare on-the-spot.

      A society with that much wealth, literally paying its citizens with money and services leaps and bounds beyond just about anywhere else in the world, hasn't any hope in hell of competing when it comes to labour rates. So if you choose to live, work, or do business in a place that pays its citizens top-dollar, you can't be allowed to then stop paying anyone, take the country's money, and use it to pay peanuts to far-away peoples. If you are, you might as well just shut the country down now.

      And that's the point. The people living there prefer the higher wages, and the better services. That's why they live there. No one's forced to live there. And no one's forced to work there. So this is all cool.

    2. Re:Totally Unworkable by GNious · · Score: 1

      If you're in the US handling HR and Legal aspects for employees, there is a 99% chance you're messing up anyways*

      *: Based on my experience

    3. Re:Totally Unworkable by stenvar · · Score: 1

      Perhaps single-country corporations would be better for the people of most countries.

      Yeah, because those kinds of nationalism and trade barriers worked so well for 19th and 20th century Europe, right?

      I guess we might find out if this tax has legs.

      A lot of stupid, self-destructive things have legs in European politics; just look at the past few centuries of history.

    4. Re:Totally Unworkable by Sique · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You got the idea. It's a disincentive for companies to have them manage personal data outside of the jurisdiction of people the data is about (which makes it nearly impossible or at least very expensive and cumbersome for said people to go to court about that data). Yes, you can still do it, but it comes at a price. And the company has to consider if it's worth it.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    5. Re:Totally Unworkable by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      You could always have a subsidiary in the country managing the employees there, with the subsidiary reporting back overall numbers without any specifics on individuals. If you're already a multinational company, is there really a major need to know the details on individual employees anyway? Overall stats like the number of people on a particular insurance plan, in a specific position with the company, or making a certain amount of money should be enough for most decisions.

      Yes, there would be some additional overhead from doubling up on personnel management rather than centralizing it all in one location, but it would just be an additional cost for doing business in that country, and one that I wouldn't mind seeing them pay (and I'm even an American, but I don't wish this surveillance state stuff on anyone else, so kudos to them for trying to discourage the export of their citizen's personal data).

    6. Re:Totally Unworkable by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      some additional overhead from doubling up on personnel management

      You have now convinced me that this will be welcomed by companies as this means that existing managers will be able to hire additional MBAs. This is also why it will suck for any regular employees.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    7. Re:Totally Unworkable by houghi · · Score: 1

      Do you seriously believe that people in the HR department in the US have ANY idea how to manage the salary of those in Europe? If anything, this would be an advantage to handle local budgets locally.

      Do you think they are interested in how much a 36 year old female receptionist in Belgium who works in a 9/10th system with every Wednesday morning of and has taken 3 days payed holiday and 1 afternoon in sickness gets in meal vouchers? (Yes, that is a real life example) . Or how much she gets payed back after she moved 7 KM closer to the company?

      What really happens is that there is considers how high the headcount needs to be. Then how high the budget must be. And that is ALL they will be interested in. Headcount and cost. They do not care about individuals.

      So these things are managed locally. This has been the way for EVERY international company.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    8. Re:Totally Unworkable by biodata · · Score: 1

      Probably the British Empire was the first global corporation, and that predates the 19th Century considerably, and you are right it worked out very badly for a lot of people all over the world. The modern corporations do not exist for the benefit of the people of Europe any more than the British Empire existed for the benefit of the people of Africa or anywhere else. I am not a nationalist, far from it, but we don't currently have a democratically elected world government which can legislate in any way over the activities of multinational corporations. I don't understand how anyone would think it is best to hand over power to unelected boards of corporations rather than elected officials. We developed democracies to bring the rule of law to our neighbourhoods, and the corporations tried to sidestep all that by becoming stateless, to make an extra buck by avoiding tax regimes and labour laws they didn't like. I think maybe France wants to stand up for the rule of law in the world.

      --
      Korma: Good
    9. Re:Totally Unworkable by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      It's been a long time since a "real" war. No or very few politicians alive actually remember one. Growing populations, greed and corruption are putting more pressure on resources; population on the demand side, corruption and greed on the waste side, so even if we have more, we actually have "less". Everyone is pissing around their individual post and marking their territory - Russia, Japan, China, US. The world is basically divided into 2 camps: US/Euro and some allies, vs Russia/China and some allies. Even if China and Russia are not outright allies, they realize they have to co-operate. Throw in another economic crisis and I see the powder-keg going off. Easily. So your analogy to 19th/20th century is correct. "It's that time again".

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    10. Re:Totally Unworkable by garyebickford · · Score: 2

      unelected boards of corporations

      Technically, having an elected board is a characteristic of most types of corporations. Generally the board is elected by a 'one share = one vote" election, although there are other arrangements, such as one class of shares having more votes - common in family-run corporations. In some countries (Germany for one), the unions and the local governments even have representatives on the board.

      In recent decades there has been an unfortunate dearth of investors (largely institutions and funds these days) not actually using their voting power to significantly influence management, but that seems to be changing in the last few years. There are even funds that sell to 'green' or other single-issue investors, that vote according to their principals.

      If you mean, "unelected by my local fellow citizens", then true. The number and scope of unintended consequences of doing that would be huge. In fact this French thing is actually a fairly good example by analogy.

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
    11. Re:Totally Unworkable by simonreid · · Score: 1

      is there really a major need to know the details on individual employees anyway?

      Yes or course there is. Lets say I have a customer in the US who has a colleague in the UK that also wants to buy my product, how can I put him in touch with someone in our London office without knowing their phone number? What if I want to grow my business in China and want to look at who the top sales guys are all over the world? Those examples are trivial but there are thousands more.

      Yes, there would be some additional overhead from doubling up on personnel management rather than centralizing it all in one location, but it would just be an additional cost for doing business in that country, and one that I wouldn't mind seeing them pay (and I'm even an American, but I don't wish this surveillance state stuff on anyone else, so kudos to them for trying to discourage the export of their citizen's personal data).

      That sounds lovely until you realize that the EU classes everything as personal information. Its a mess as it is having to get permission from every employee in an EU country to be able to share basic stuff like phone numbers and office locations outside the EU. I can't imagine how complex it would get if you then had a tax liability on top of it.

      What will end up happening is one of two things, people will only ever host data in the EU (since it costs money to take it out and the EU is a big market so screw it, lets just leave it there), or companies will never store information there.

      Actually thinking about it this could be a genius plan, effectively forcing companies to manage their operations in the EU by applying an export tariff (which is what this tax would be) that is so complex to manage its just cheaper to move operations there

    12. Re:Totally Unworkable by stenvar · · Score: 1

      Throw in another economic crisis and I see the powder-keg going off. Easily. So your analogy to 19th/20th century is correct. "It's that time again".

      It's only "that time again" if Europeans fall back into their protectionist and nationalist ways. Free trade and free movement of goods and people are the best antidotes.

      (And your understanding of global "camps" and "alliances" is ridiculous.)

    13. Re:Totally Unworkable by stenvar · · Score: 1

      Probably the British Empire was the first global corporation, and that predates the 19th Century considerably, and you are right it worked out very badly for a lot of people all over the world

      The British empire wasn't a "global corporation", it was a belligerent and oppressive nation.

      I am not a nationalist, far from it, but we don't currently have a democratically elected world government which can legislate in any way over the activities of multinational corporations

      Bullshit. Multinational corporations have to comply with all local laws wherever they operate, and they do.

      We developed democracies to bring the rule of law to our neighbourhoods, and the corporations tried to sidestep all that by becoming stateless, to make an extra buck by avoiding tax regimes and labour laws they didn't like

      They don't "sidestep" anything. What they do is move production to where it is cheapest, namely developing nations with people eager to work for less than greedy Europeans. That's what these corporations are supposed to do; it's the whole purpose of having free trade and free movement of good and people in the first place. What really bothers you is the same thing that has bothered European imperialists for centuries, namely developing nations getting ahead, instead of being to exploit them mercilessly.

  8. Re:data protection in the EU by KillaBeave · · Score: 1

    That and it's a jobs bill. Hard to consolidate your data centers out of country if that's illegal. Need in-country monkeys to run those boxes!

  9. that's what caused the problem, TFA says by raymorris · · Score: 1

    TFA says:

    > [Companies pay their taxes] inEuropean countries which have lower corporate tax rates, such as Ireland whereGoogle has its European headquarters. ... so let's make our taxes higher and more complex.
    They put their headquarters in Ireland so they can pay their taxes in Ireland because Ireland has low taxes.
    If you want them to locate (and pay taxes) in your country, you should ... have high taxes?!?!

    1. Re:that's what caused the problem, TFA says by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 2

      YES. And then have a corrupt taxation authority, like in the Netherlands, that you can make "special deals" with. This guarantees that you will not suffer from competition by pesky small companies.

      --
      Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  10. Re:So if someone ships books out of the EU... by jonbryce · · Score: 1

    Personal data is already defined in EU law. The Fermilab data set is not personal data. The book almost certainly isn't either. The linux distro is definitely not personal data.

  11. NSA will not like it by gtirloni · · Score: 1

    Do you think they could get an exception on this tax?

    --
    none
  12. Its about jobs not personal privacy ... by perpenso · · Score: 1

    More importantly, it attributes real value to personal data. That makes sense today, since it's sold as a currency already.

    These laws are about protecting domestic jobs not about protecting your personal privacy. Its an attempt to keep the processing of information in the EU. The problem is it is applicable only to personal data, businesses already work around this by anonymizing data. Names, addresses, social security numbers / national ID numbers and other personally identifiable information (PII) are replaced with codes only the domestic organization knows. Thus the data transferred outside the EU has no PII. When the processed information is returned to the EU the codes are replaced with the PII.

    1. Re:Its about jobs not personal privacy ... by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      That's an enforcement detail that easily changed in the future. Come on.

    2. Re:Its about jobs not personal privacy ... by perpenso · · Score: 1

      That's an enforcement detail that easily changed in the future. Come on.

      Changing the definition of personally identifiable information (PII) is not a small detail. Doing so would have massive consequences on domestic data processing as well. Businesses would undertake a massive effort to "educate and inform" politicians should they think about doing so.

    3. Re:Its about jobs not personal privacy ... by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      Think more. It's easier than creating this law in the first place. It's also an enforcement issue more than a principle issue. And this law isn't set yet. Wait until next month.

      Stop arguing the argument. Women do that. Try arguing the actual point being made. This isn't a debate club. If you want the value of a debate, elect a president who's as useless as the one before him. If you want to actually make a difference from one year to the next, argue the problem and its solution.

    4. Re:Its about jobs not personal privacy ... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      This isn't a debate club.

      Of course Slashdot is a debate club. It's whole function is to give a subject in the form of a story and then let people comment the story and other comments while it keeps a record.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  13. Re:data protection in the EU by Flavianoep · · Score: 2

    That and it's a jobs bill. Hard to consolidate your data centers out of country if that's illegal. Need in-country monkeys to run those boxes!

    Who said that transferring data should or would be illegal. EU citizen have to pay tax on sales, is ever sales illegal?

    --
    Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
  14. French kiss by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Note it is coucjed as sticking it to foreign companies, and helping the local French people, when it is actually another attempt to force the French to shoulder even more unnecessary financial burdens and make them more anti-competitive.

    Basically: We politicians pretend this kicks the rich in the balls when they will just shift the burden onto you.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  15. The law's already in place by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    Data exported from the EU already has to maintain certain data protection standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles though one suspects the law may not be well enforced. All this does is add a tax on top, which is, relatively, a detail

    1. Re:The law's already in place by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      You're funny. You're complaining that they don't spend a lot of money enforcing it, and then you're calling the acquisition of funds a detail.

      This will be the very money that makes enforcing it worth while!

  16. Government incentives to spy by greggman · · Score: 1

    Just what we need. Incentivise the government to sell our data.

    "We're short on tax revenue. I know, let's sell some data to the NSA"

  17. Same goes for cheap GSM plans in EU by citizenr · · Score: 1

    All billings end up in Israel of all places (wtf?)

    --
    Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
  18. Good luck trying to tax the data we stole, EU! by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    We are the NSA.

    Our chief weapons are Fear, Theft, and Stealing.

    We repeat the last two just because we can.

    Now go home you silly EU kniggits!

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  19. The Google Tax by Required+Snark · · Score: 1
    I think the real intent is to force Google to pay taxes in the EU.

    Does the definition of "taking data out" include web crawling? That's all it would take.

    When I see this sort of thing my cynical sensor goes to eleven. If the situation was reversed, and Google was in France, how would the French react to a similar data tax in the US? They would bitch so loudly that you could hear it standing on the Atlantic coast of Florida.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
  20. Re:data protection in the EU by Hentes · · Score: 1

    I guess it boils down to whether you want to have the EU or the US to spy on you. Personally, I prefer the one I have a vote in.

  21. Re:data protection in the EU by stenvar · · Score: 1

    Personally, I prefer countries to spy on me who can't do anything to me personally, i.e., the countries where I don't vote.

  22. Re:data protection in the EU by Hentes · · Score: 1

    The countries that spy on you will give your data to the others through data sharing agreements.

  23. Re:data protection in the EU by stenvar · · Score: 1

    Your point being what exactly? "I don't want my country to spy on me." obviously includes "I don't want my country to obtain espionage data on me from third parties." That's a legal issue in my country.

    You seem to think that it's just fine if the EU spies on you because you're an EU citizen. I consider that extremely foolish.

    I don't care whether other countries spy on me. Europe, Russia, China, knock yourself out (you already do anyway).

  24. stuck keys by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

    Thanks, I just need to clean the freedom fries out of my keyboard more often.