Charge the UN Land Rent - U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show

Time to tell the UN to go chase themselves! And get the hell out!

U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show | Security & Privacy - CNET News
Global Internet tax suggested by European network operators, who want Apple, Google, and other Web companies to pay to deliver content, is proposed for debate at a U.N. agency in December.

Declan McCullagh and Larry Downes

  June 7, 2012

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.

The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.

The documents (No. 1 No. 2) punctuate warnings that the Obama administration and Republican members of Congress raised last week about how secret negotiations at the ITU over an international communications treaty could result in a radical re-engineering of the Internet ecosystem and allow governments to monitor or restrict their citizens' online activities.

"It's extremely worrisome," Sally Shipman Wentworth, senior manager for public policy at theInternet Society, says about the proposed Internet taxes. "It could create an enormous amount of legal uncertainty and commercial uncertainty."

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