The now "famous" web tax (or Google tax) on the purchase of on-line ads and sponsored links on search engines might come into force on the 1st of March 2014 having an impact on the Internet liability regime, unless the Italian Government takes an immediate action to prevent it.
Adding 450 million monthly users to 1.3 bn monthly users costs $19 bn according to Facebook, but also means that the buyer will be able to know about (and benefit from) much more information on its users to be potentially used for advertising purposes. This is what advertisers might be thinking about, but this might be also the concern of the Canadian, the Dutch and the Italian data protection authority that investigated on WhatsApp in 2013.
€ 1.3 bn is the value of sales from Italian fashion websites in 2013 with an increase year by year of 30+% and considerable potentials for further growth since it represents only 20% of the total value of the Italian B2C e-commerce sector. These are some of the topics together with wearable technology issues impacting on the Internet of Things covered in the very interesting #Fashiononline event that took place in Milan (Italy).
On Friday 24 January 2014 at 9.15, we will be holding a very interesting event named #FASHIONLINE - Fashion bloggers, e-commerce & wearable technology issues in collaboration with Borsa Italiana (the Milan stock exchange) in Milan at Palazzo Mezzanotte.
Here is my very personal top 5 of topics that I covered in 2013 on this blog, looking at their impact on the market and their potential implications in 2014.
The web tax previously covered has now become more and more a Google tax given that its final approved version relates only to online ads and sponsored links, but the main issue concerns the obligations deriving from this provision in terms of Internet liability principles.
As mentioned, my law firm DLA Piper held yesterday an interesting seminar in Rome named "Sports betting crisis in Italy – how to reverse the decline?" which was very well attended by most of the sportsbetting operators within the Italian market and whose main presentations are available here.
A web tax also renamed as "Google tax" aimed at obliging foreign Internet operators to pay Italian taxes is currently subject of discussion before the Italian Parliament and has raised considerable concerns also in relation to its potential lack of compliance with EU principles of the new tax related Internet liability regime.
