Bill Clinton Indicates Switch To Favoring E-Commerce Taxes, Leans Toward ICANN on Government Pressures
Bill Clinton indicated he now supports e-commerce taxation, and endorsed redistribution of wealth between and within countries to extend Internet access to those without it. Speaking Wednesday evening at an international meeting of ICANN in San Francisco, the former president did a balancing act -- with a tilt toward the status quo -- concerning government control of Internet administration.
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Clinton stressed the importance of pushing forward with the availability and power of online technologies to ensure opportunities for successors to organizers of the uprising in Egypt. “You want the Internet to say forever young,” he said in a talk, in which he bemoaned his impending eligibility for Medicare.
Clinton didn’t say flatly that he has changed his position to support taxes on e-commerce. He did raise the issue and emphasize how important fair taxation and increasing revenue are and how strong online retailing has become. “E-commerce is doing great, and old commerce is doing not so great,” he said, lamenting widespread closings of Borders book stores.
Clinton added what he framed as a dollop of realism as a damper on digital utopianism. He warned against getting “so carried away that we think real-world power and organization don’t matter,” pointing to developments in Libya. “Let’s not forget that countries matter,” Clinton added. He didn’t specify how much he may have been talking about governments’ demand for increased influence over the Internet’s management, in addition to commenting on geopolitics in the outside world.
"In general, we should keep doing what we're doing and make appropriate adjustments,” Clinton said when asked about the roles that national governments should play in managing the Internet: “I'd like to see the basic framework stay as it is.” Clinton avoided other matters churning at ICANN. “I don’t want to step into the controversies” that the organization is dealing with, he said.
Countries with good Internet access should help those without it, and “wealthy sections” of nations should help poorer ones gain increased access, Clinton said. “I'm really proud of the position that the secretary of state has staked on this whole issue,” he said of his wife, Hillary Clinton: “She is like every other obsessive person I ever knew: She’s perfectly happy” staying connected “all the time.” Clinton called her the best informed secretary of state ever, but said he struggles to persuade her to get enough sleep.