[clug] The 1st Internet Tax is here.

[Martijn van Oosterhout]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 03:30:44AM -0700, Seth Turnbull wrote:
> again my major concern was that the bankers have now deemed a monthly
> surcharge (tax) for processing CC transactions. We have all in our own way
> fought over the years
> to keep the Internet some what free and to me this seems like the 1st
> accepted tax. As some of you have said this is a necessary evil. I totally
> disagree with that thought process.

Personally, I'm missing the link between "charging a monthly fee to do
CC transactions" and "they're taxing the internet". But I'm sure it's
something obvious I'm missing.

> I would lean more towards the others to say "the banks system needs to be
> fixed". It would be alot simpler for the banks to provide a system that
> would allow CC holders the
> ability to provide a pregenerated number or string of some sort that would
> allow payment by that CC holder w.o actually transmitting any personal
> information. This would be a huge undertaking and
> would cost them early on but in the long run would be very beneficial to
> all.

AIUI such systems already exist. When you want to buy something online
you go to your banks website, type in the amount and they present you
with a one-time only credit-card number which only works for the amount
you specify. Quite possibly they don't exist in australia, but they do
exist.

http://www.elharo.com/blog/finance/2006/05/17/virtual-account-numbers/

> I'm rather frustrated by this and it's a little odd that this was "passed"
> with out some same or input by the people. I get the impression this is the
> Titan being a bully and making the lessors pay.

Credit cards are a cash cow for the banks. It's amazing how they've
contrived the entire banking system so it looks like it's cheaper to
pay everything by CC, while everyone ends up paying more in the end.

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   <kleptog at svana.org>   http://svana.org/kleptog/
> Please line up in a tree and maintain the heap invariant while 
> boarding. Thank you for flying nlogn airlines.
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