Email, mobile phone text message tax idea floated by European Parliament member sparks online 'furor'

Raw Story
Jun. 12, 2006

A 'furor' has broken out in Europe after a European Parliament member suggested that emails and mobil phone text messages could be taxed, according to a story set for Monday's edition of The New York Times RAW STORY has learned.

Excerpts from the article written by Thomas Crampton:

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A French member of the European Parliament, Alain Lamassoure, recently uttered the dreaded T-word -- taxes -- in connection with e-mail and mobile phone text messages, and in so doing earned the wrath of the Internet generation.

No matter how remote the possibility may be -- or how useful such taxes might be in financing the European Union budget -- the mere mention of taxing messages was enough to ignite the blogosphere and industry lobbying groups.

Lamassoure raised the option of a Europewide tax on e-mail and text messages last month in a meeting on ways to finance the European Union's rising costs. As indignant missives filled the message board on Lamassoure's Web site, he distanced himself from the proposal, saying he had mentioned the idea only as a topic for discussion, not as something he supported.

Any new tax could not move ahead without approval from all of the European Union's 25 national legislatures, and a message tax in particular is not even at the stage of a formal proposal. Still, some politicians and technology experts say the debate could serve to highlight imbalances between casual users and Internet hogs.

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FULL TIMES ARTICLE HERE