And if I was a search engine I’d remove the summary from the result but link the the title to a cached snapshot such as internet archive whenever possible.
I doubt the reform will be a reality in its current form however.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/link-tax-experiences-germany-...
Germany's experience: Google did not display news snippets from publishers unless they waived their right to be paid. They all eventually capitulated. Spain's experience: the Spanish version of this law did not have an opt out provision. Thus, Google News simply closed shop in Spain.
For some reason, the regulators do not believe Google when Google says they do not make money on Google News. But it is true. Google News is a "halo" property. Like Google Keep, it isn't itself a money-making endeavor. Google pays for it on the theory that providing that service will make the overall suite of services more compelling to users. But it's not worth much to Google, and you can see this by the paucity of Google's investment in the property compared to almost anything else.
Maybe the theory is that Google will stay in business and pay because they're worried about competitors filling the gap? But if this service is not economically viable for Google to run, how could it possibly be more viable for a competitor to step into this space? The outcome of a link tax will simply be that Google News ceases to operate in the EU, is my bet. That's a fine result for some people, although I doubt it's the intended one. But I guess that the EU politicians and bureaucrats will delude themselves into believing some other outcome is possible until the very moment it happens.
Thing that really makes this puzzling is Google News barely shows snippets any more. At least when I load the page, it only shows article titles.
The publishers and regulators are such fools on this topic. They think people need the news. The opposite is the truth. The news needs viewers. If it's harder to find interesting news, people spend their time on something else.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/17/18186879/google-eu-copyri...
In principle it’s an important idea, otherwise all online retailers will set themselves up in a zero tax domicile and get an unjustified 5-20% advantage over local retailers.
Displaying the final price _after_ the user has put the CC number is not the most trustworthy experience :)
I don't know how this is done in the wild, but some large companies often have TLDs per country and only accept CCs from a given country on a given site version, for example (and they redirect you by IP).
Yes, it is. Let's say you're running a one man business selling digital knitting patterns. Before the law you could sell to anyone in the EU and you'd only have to deal with your own country's tax authority. After the law you had to deal with the tax authority of every single EU country you had a buyer in. Is it worth selling 10 patterns to Lithuania? No, because filing taxes to the Lithuanian tax authority is more expensive than what you would've made from the sales. Thus, you don't sell to Lithuania.
There was no minimum threshold. Earned €0.01 from another country? Better file those taxes. Almost every single country has a minimum VAT threshold, but EU politicians in their infinite wisdom didn't think of that.
This situation persisted until this year, where there's finally a minimum VAT threshold in place. It's low (€10,000) but at least it's something. It only took them FOUR YEARS to do this. I wonder how many micro and small businesses closed as a result.
> After the law you had to deal with the tax authority of every single EU country you had a buyer in.
Incorrect, that's why the VAT MOSS scheme exists https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-digit...
The vat threshold is definitely welcome though
The VAT rulings are a mess. The correct thing to do is let remote retailers drive the sales tax rates to zero for things that can be bought over the internet. The complexities of trying to pretend all sales are local in a world where long-range shipping and the internet exist aren't worth it.
But let's not forget the EU's other regulatory hits. The cookie law that means every website now tells me it uses cookies (I know), with an annoying pop up (that uses a cookie to remember it's been dismissed). This solved zero problems I had in life but does mean using the web has become systematically unpleasant. And then there's the GDPR, a law that literally says "you can't do these things unless you have a legitimate need in which case you can", thus making a mockery of the entire concept of law.
GDPR is especially indicative of the EU's true nature because, of course, it does not apply to the EU itself. The Commission was in violation on the day it came into force, on this being noticed they announced that the Commission does not have to comply with GDPR like everyone else does.
The EU has a long track record of passing awful, business-killing laws whilst simultaneously ignoring any of its own laws or treaties the moment they get in the way of what the EU's leadership wants. It's a part of the world that implements rule by law.
For companies with total supplies under 100.000 EUR, a single piece of evidence (which can be IP geocoding) is enough as of January 2019, thanks to this amendment:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
The one that approximately no one follows?
It will happen again.
https://boingboing.net/2019/01/24/quisling-zuckermonsters.ht...