French Internet Tax Proposal Resurfaces

French President, Francois Hollande, delivered a report last week proposing a tax on internet data that could, if levied, affect Internet-based companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google and other American tech companies. The report, which is the result of a two-year investigation of Google’s tax practices, proposes the plan for a tax that would be levied against Internet-based technology companies that collect people's data; suggesting that in collecting personal information from French citizens and in turn using that information to promote specifically located advertisements, citizens are in effect working for the companies, requiring taxation by the government. According to France's digital economy minister, Fleur Pellerin, Google and others “are not submitted to the same conditions, as far as taxes are concerned, as the French players,” Pellerin said. “That doesn’t set the right conditions for a fair competition."