A strange set of bedfellows, including Apple, AT&T, Electronic Arts, Cox Communications, Verizon, T-Mobile and Time Warner Cable, have endorsed federal legislation designed to curb iTaxes--policies that put sales taxes on digital downloads. The service and content providers argue that, among other things, "fast-paced technological and commercial changes are making it increasingly difficult and in some cases nearly impossible" to deal with these "confusing and conflicting" state tax laws.
The feds are supposedly coming to the rescue with a bill sponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia and Lamar Smith of Texas to do something about what Boucher called "unfair, multiple and inconsistent taxation of these digital goods and services."
A cynic, of course, would suggest that the feds might just change this multiple and inconsistent taxation into a federal tax, but then, that would be looking at the dark side of things.
In other Internet news, word from up north in Canada is that a three-member panel of the Federal Appeal Court has ruled that ISPs aren't broadcasters even if they connect top TV and movie sites. Besides stating what might seem obvious to some, this is a win for ISPs like Bell Canada, Telus, Rogers and Shaw because they shouldn't be tagged with a proposed content levy being bandied about in the Great White North.
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