Re: Bitrate tax.

At 2:26 pm 12/6/96, Eric Luyten wrote:
>(NOT a joke)
>
>The Belgian Minister for Telecommunications came up with the idea of
>introducing a "bitrate tax" on information transmission.
...
><double sigh>
>Eric.

Communications Week International for 24th June runs the story in page 3:
"Electric levy could mean a taxing time for Belgians" by Camille Mendler.
The writer tries to fan the embers of a story into a fire by the likes of
"...cynics contend that it is no coincidence that Di Rupo (credited with
inventing the tax) is from the southern French-speaking region (...) the
tax is simply a ruse to bring financial relief into the largely rural
region". They clearly havn't heard of the *advantage* that telematics can
bring to rural regions and that such regions are disadvantaged by high
cost. Again "...analysts insist that monitoring data could be interpreted
as an invasion of privacy under current EC laws". Clearly they havn't been
following the attempts by the EC to insist on a Euro-Clipper chip.

        Ho hum. :-(

        Denis.