Summarizing a report issued by the French government last week the New York Times says that France is considering a range of creative taxation schemes on US based Internet companies -- Google and Facebook in particular. France is trying to generate new revenues amid a challenging economic climate in Europe. Google and Facebook are seen by many European governments as "deep pockets." There's also a punitive quality to the various taxation proposals as well. France (among others) has been frustrated by what it sees as domestic tax avoidance by large Internet companies. It is seeking to c [...]

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Facebook's automated system of suggesting image tags based on facial recognition has brought the company another formal privacy investigation in Europe, according to Bloomberg. This time it's Norway seeking to determine whether Facebook has violated its privacy rules. Norway’s data-protection agency joins other regulators from the EU investigating the feature. Norway is not an EU member state but is reportedly coordinating its initiative with other states, including an ongoing Irish probe. Germany was also investigating Facebook facial recognition but has suspended its investigation and d [...]

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Google's dominance outside the U.S. is taking a slight hit with news today that Facebook has overtaken it five times this month as the most-visited website in Brazil. The news comes from Serasa Experian (link in Portuguese), the Brazilian version of Experian Hitwise. The company reports that Facebook first beat out Google for most visits back on April 1st, then again on April 6th and April 8th. It happened for the fourth and fifth times this past weekend, when Facebook was the most popular site in Brazil on both April 14th and 15th. On the 14th, Facebook received 10.86 percent of all we [...]

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