Sarkozy proposes ad tax on Google

According to the Financial Times, the French government is considering the possibilityt of taxing the advertising revenues of Google and other internet portals. Following complaints from the French media that Google and other sites are generating advertising income using their news and other content, President Nicolas Sarkozy instructed his finance ministry to examine the merits of such a tax and also called for an inquiry by French competition authorities into a possible “abuse of dominant position” in the advertising business of big internet sites. According to the FT, Google stated that introducing an additional tax on internet advertising was not the right way forward as it could slow down innovation.