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.