France Proposes a Tax On Personal Information Collection
Dupple writes in with a story about a French proposal to tax companies that collect personal data online. "France, seeking fresh ways to raise funds and frustrated that American technology companies that dominate its digital economy are largely beyond the reach of French fiscal authorities, has proposed a new levy: an Internet tax on the collection of personal data. The idea surfaced Friday in a report commissioned by President François Hollande, which described various measures his government was taking to address what the French see as tax avoidance by Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook. These companies gather vast reams of information about their users, harnessing it to tailor their services to individuals' interests or to direct customized advertising to them. So extensive is the collection of personal details, and so promising the business opportunities linked to it, that the report described data as the "raw material" of the digital economy."
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Hidden Within New Govt. Facial Recognition Guidelines, The Dreaded ‘Opt-In’ Rule
The [US government? Federal government?] government has released new guidelines on facial recognition technologies and discretely tucked in a Trojan horse that is destined to have fierce opposition: a rule that advertisers and social networks must get permission before repurposing facial data for future use. Facebook has long argued that “opt-in” rules would stifle innovation in a culture with unpredictable tolerance for new uses of personal data, such as the newsfeed, which users initially opposed and has since become a staple of social networking. The Federal Trade Commission worries that Facial data can be automatically be collected in en masse and repurposed for intrusive advertising, when technologies such as interactive billboards become more common. Indeed, third-party developers are already starting to engineer creative Face-sensitive products, such as Facedeals, a camera that automatically “checks-in” users as they walk into a restaurant. In recognition of the growing use ...
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Congress Must Allow More STEM Visas Today
Editor's note: Michael Beckerman is President and CEO of The Internet Association, a new policy lobby representing Google, Amazon, and Facebook, among many web-based technology companies. This piece, in support of the STEM Jobs Act currently being considered by Congress, is their first public policy statement. Highly skilled and talented people are a powerful source of new innovation and job creation, and Internet companies across America know first- hand that immigrants create jobs, build companies, invent new products and services and push the U.S. economy forward in a critically important way.
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Serendip Helps You Discover Music And DJ Friends By Creating A Playlist Shared By Your Friends
When it comes to music discovery, technology and the Internet opened a lot of possibilities. Yet, and this is what Serendip is all about, music curation by your friends or knowledgeable people are frequently much more valuable than what you could get from an automated service. Today, Serendip is launching out of private beta and is now available for everyone. The service aggregates all the songs that your friends share on Twitter and Facebook and arrange them in a playlist. Then, it includes some songs by users who liked the same artists as you or your friends.
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UN To Debate Taxing Internet Data
Wowsers writes "In an effort to get ever more taxes for doing absolutely nothing, the United Nations will consider a European proposal to tax the internet based on data that gets sent. The proposal is designed to get money from large bandwidth users like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix. Smaller companies that have high bandwidth requirements could be forced off the internet due to the taxes. 'The sender-pays framework would likely prompt U.S.-based Internet services to reject connections from users in developing countries, who would become unaffordably expensive to communicate with, predicts Robert Pepper, Cisco's vice president for global technology policy.'"
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