Swiss Communications Minister Moritz Leuenberger has suggested a ‘tax on information’ to help bridge the digital divide between wealthy countries with good communication infrastructure and poor countries where most of the population have no access to modern communications.
Leuenberger revealed his proposal to a United Nations meeting convened to follow up on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held jointly in Geneva and Tunis in 2003 and 2005.
“Today more than half the world’s population don’t even have a telephone and four out of five people don’t have access to the internet,” Leuenberger told the conference. “They are cut off from information and any possibility of exchanging information, training or improving themselves.”
“If we don’t want these people to leave their countries, we must do something to ensure that the gap doesn’t grow wider between those who surf the internet via high-speed ADSL and those who have to walk ten kilometres to the nearest phone box,” he added.
[I would like to propose a global tax on exotic animals as it is unfair that developed nations do not have access to elephants, lions, gazelles, and zebras that roam in the wild.]
UPDATE: The U.S. House of Representatives has begun to debate whether or not to extend the current moratorium restricting state governments from taxing internet access which will expire on Nov. 1.
