BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Large companies with significant digital revenues in the European Union could face a 3 percent tax on their turnover under a draft proposal from the European Commission seen by Reuters.
The proposal, expected to be adopted next week and still subject to changes, has been modified from an earlier draft which put the planned corporate rate between 1 and 5 percent.
The tax, if backed by EU states and lawmakers, would only apply to large firms with annual worldwide revenues above 750 million euros ($ 924 million) and annual “taxable” revenues above 50 million euros in the EU.
The tax is presented in the draft as a temporary measure that would only be implemented if no deal is found on a more comprehensive solution which would tax the digital profits of companies in the countries where they are made, rather than where the firms are headquartered as is the case now.
($ 1 = 0.8117 euros)
Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by Foo Yun Chee
LONDON (Reuters) - Social media companies should face prosecution for failing to remove racist and extremist material from their websites, according to a report by an influential committee.
FILE PHOTO - A picture illustration shows a Facebook logo reflected in a person"s eye, in Zenica, March 13, 2015.REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
Prime Minister Theresa May’s ethics watchdog recommends introducing laws to shift the liability for illegal content onto social media firms and calls for them to do more to take down intimidatory content.
Social media companies currently do not have liability for the content on their sites, even when it is illegal, the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life said.
The recommendations form part of the conclusions of an inquiry into intimidation experienced by parliamentary candidates in an election campaign this year.
“The widespread use of social media has been the most significant factor accelerating and enabling intimidatory behavior in recent years,” the report said.
“The committee is deeply concerned about the limited engagement of the social media companies in tackling these issues.”
While the report said intimidation in public life is an old problem, the scale and intensity of intimidation is now posing a threat to Britain’s democracy.
FILE PHOTO - People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in this illustration picture taken September 27, 2013. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo
The report found that women, ethnic minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender political candidates are disproportionately likely to be the targets of intimidation.
The committee heard how racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and anti-Semitic abuse is putting off some candidates from standing for public office.
Platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are criticized for failing to remove abusive material posted online even after they were notified.
FILE PHOTO - A 3D-printed YouTube icon is seen in front of a displayed YouTube logo in this illustration taken October 25, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Ilustration
The committee said it was “surprised and concerned” Google, Facebook and Twitter do not collect data on the material they take down.
“The companies’ failure to collect this data seems extraordinary given that they thrive on data collection,” the report said. “It would appear to demonstrate that they do not prioritize addressing this issue of online intimidation.”
Twitter said in a statement it has announced several updates to its platform aimed at cutting down on abusive content and it is taking action on 10 times the number of abusive accounts every day compared to the same time last year.
YouTube declined to comment, while Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Many politicians have become more vocal about the abuse they face after Labour’s Jo Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, was shot and repeatedly stabbed a week before Britain’s Brexit referendum last year.
Reporting By Andrew MacAskill; editing by Stephen Addison
(Reuters) - Over 30 technology companies including Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Facebook Inc. (FB.O) on Friday urged a U.S. patent court to disregard drugmaker Allergan Plc’s (AGN.N) contention that its transfer of some of its patents to a Native American tribe shields them from the court’s review.
The Allergan logo is seen in this photo illustration in Singapore November 23, 2015. REUTERS/Thomas White
Two trade groups comprised of tech industry leaders argued in a joint brief submitted to the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board that the board has the right to review the validity of patents covering the dry eye medicine Restasis that Allergan transferred to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in a deal announced in September.
“This panel’s statutory authority to review whether the Restasis patents were properly granted as a matter of federal law does not and should not depend on the identity of the patents’ owner,” said the trade group.
Allergan is arguing the tribe’s sovereign status means the patent review board, an administrative court, has no jurisdiction over the transferred patents. The tribe agreed to exclusively license the Restasis patents back to Allergan in exchange for ongoing payments.
Many technology companies have praised the patent court, saying it is a low-cost and efficient way to cancel dubious patents used to bring abusive lawsuits. They fear that, if upheld, Allergan’s strategy could be widely adopted and used against them.
The case before the patent board stems from a challenge to the Restasis patents brought by generic drug companies led by Mylan NV (MYL.O). Generic makers had been blocked from selling their own versions of the blockbuster medicine until the patents expired in 2024.
But a federal judge in Texas already invalidated the Restasis patents in a separate proceeding, rendering Allergan’s tribal deal effectively meaningless. The company had said it did not object to federal court review of its patents but felt the administrative process was unfair.
Despite that ruling, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is hearing arguments on whether it must accept Allergan’s tribal immunity argument.
A group of prominent law professors, including Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Berkeley, submitted a brief on Friday siding with the tribe and Allergan.
“Far from being a scheme to shield patents from review, the agreement from the Tribe’s perspective is part of its economic development plan,” the academics said. “The Allergan-Mohawk contract reflects exactly the sort of economic entrepreneurship that Congress has been urging upon tribes.”
Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Anthony Lin and Andrew Hay
