CoOlDiGgY tech & media

Turning Web Retailers into Tax Snitches

Internet users accustomed to tax-free online shopping may soon be in for an unpleasant surprise: new laws that will force them to cough up more cash every year on April 15.

An increasing number of politicians, concerned with shrinking budgets and eyeing continuing growth in e-commerce, want to force out-of-state retailers like Amazon.com, Overstock.com, and Blue Nile to tattle to tax collectors about how much in sales taxes their customers have avoided paying.

At the moment, for instance, Amazon customers in California don't pay sales tax but are supposed to voluntarily write a check for the full amount on tax day--the concept is called a "use tax." Few people do. Tax collectors view it as a loophole that can be closed by requiring Amazon to share customer data with the government.

"This is Big Brother--it's the purchasing police," says Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, which counts eBay, Overstock.com, and Yahoo as members and says the proposals are probably unconstitutional.

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CoOlDiGgY tech & media

The Palm Pre Battery Problem. Can't stay charged

(from the forums):
For those of you who have the new Palm Pre...please tell me how you keep your battery charged without it going down from 100% at the beginning of the day to 30% by 3PM!?!? How are we supposed to use the Pre if you cannot be assured the battery life will sustain throughout any given day?

Too inconvenient to have it plugged in somewhere just to get a charge!

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CoOlDiGgY tech & media

Emergency Internet control bill gets a rewrite

Sen. Jay Rockefeller alarmed technology and telecommunications firms last year when he announced a plan for the president to seize "emergency" control of the Internet. Now the West Virginia Democrat is trying again with a new version that aides hope will be seen as less extreme.

During a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday attended by about a dozen industry representatives, CNET has learned, Rockefeller's staff pitched a revised version of his controversial cybersecurity legislation.

It says that after the president chooses to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," he can activate a "response and restoration plan" involving networks owned and operated by the private sector. In an attempt to limit criticism, instead of spelling out the plan's details, the latest draft simply says that it must be developed by the White House in advance.

There is no requirement that the emergency response plan be made public, meaning it could still include a forcible disconnection of critical Web sites from the Internet--which is what the March 2009 version of the legislation had proposed.

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