I'm not happy with governments taking such an active role. Ideally they help home-grown alternatives and push out American/Chinese corporations to give them space.
That is probably too little too late at this point though. Google, Facebook, Apple et al. have shown they will not stop until they dominate digital markets worldwide. Aggressive intervention by governments is the only way for them to wrestle back control.
At least with the "Indian Government App Store" there is no smoke and mirrors with regards to who has access to the data. Tech companies hand over whatever governments ask for anyway.
All we need is a proper way to tax these companies. It is totally okay that Google or Facebook is doing the work, the people can tax them and get a fair cut from the profit.
Yes you are right, taxing global companies effectively would help greatly. There seems to be no will (in the West at least) to do anything about it though.
Closing loopholes is a problem and it just becomes a war of attrition with accountants and lawyers. Maybe there does need to be the global coordinated effort on tax reform that is the typical excuse for why nothing is ever changed.
I can see why punitive action against foreign corporations could be seen as the easier option.
> Closing loopholes is a problem and it just becomes a war of attrition with accountants and lawyers.
I think that's unfortunately true, but there must be a point of diminishing returns. Close enough loopholes (intentional loopholes or otherwise) and companies end up spending more money on tax lawyers than the value of the actual tax break. Even if some companies are able to use some loopholes, closing many of them still means more tax revenue for states. We don't need to get to a "perfect" state here.
That is probably too little too late at this point though. Google, Facebook, Apple et al. have shown they will not stop until they dominate digital markets worldwide. Aggressive intervention by governments is the only way for them to wrestle back control.
At least with the "Indian Government App Store" there is no smoke and mirrors with regards to who has access to the data. Tech companies hand over whatever governments ask for anyway.