But even setting aside the question of whether link taxes are a good idea, I don’t understand why they’re making a – what to me sounds dubious – antitrust argument. It seems like a simply bizarre angle.
If the Canadian government wants news aggregators to pay a percentage of income to news companies, I would assume that they can just tax news aggregators – not per link to Canadian news source, but for operating in a market at all – take the money and then subsidize Canadian news sources. It may or may not be a good idea economically, but it seems like it’d be on considerably firmer footing than trying to use antitrust law to bludgeon news aggregators into taking actions that would trigger a link tax by aggregating Canadian news sources.
This is the real problem. Corporate taxes are frighteningly low and Canada can no longer afford to subsidize domestic industries out of corporate tax revenue.
I don’t like the idea of link taxes myself.
But even setting aside the question of whether link taxes are a good idea, I don’t understand why they’re making a – what to me sounds dubious – antitrust argument. It seems like a simply bizarre angle.
If the Canadian government wants news aggregators to pay a percentage of income to news companies, I would assume that they can just tax news aggregators – not per link to Canadian news source, but for operating in a market at all – take the money and then subsidize Canadian news sources. It may or may not be a good idea economically, but it seems like it’d be on considerably firmer footing than trying to use antitrust law to bludgeon news aggregators into taking actions that would trigger a link tax by aggregating Canadian news sources.
This is the real problem. Corporate taxes are frighteningly low and Canada can no longer afford to subsidize domestic industries out of corporate tax revenue.
I think you’re onto something here.