Sarkozy Proposes Ad Tax on Google

Old line media has gotten to French President Nicolas Sarkozy (Probably not hard to do).

The French government is considering levying a tax on the advertising revenues of Google and other internet portals. search group.

Sarkozy instructed his finance ministry to examine the merits of a tax in response to complaints from the French media that Google and other sites are generating advertising income using their news and other content. He also called for an inquiry by French competition authorities into a possible “abuse of dominant position” in the advertising business of big internet sites.

Google said that it opposed any such tax. “We don’t think introducing an additional tax on internet advertising is the right way forward as it could slow down innovation,” said Olivier Esper, senior policy manager of Google France, reports FT.