License to Sell On the Internet?

With Federal, State, County and Local Governments scrounging for money these days, guess what?

More officials are sniffing around to see how they can squeeze online marketers for more money.

One issue many are discussing is requiring Internet Marketers to have a license or permit to sell online.

They "claim" it will help cut down on fraud, scams and spammers - resulting in more protection for consumers.

But we all know what the real deal is ... it's all about the money.

What's your thoughts? And whatever they are make sure you also share them with your state public officials. Why? Because yea or nay, the discussion is coming to your state soon ... if it's not already.

Who Knew!

 

Sounds like a bad idea. There is no way that anyone can monitor all the sales going on online.
It could be possible if it was only for "real" products, and not eBooks and so on, because digital products can be
sold everywhere in minutes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stopping those spammers/scammers, but this is not an effective way.

 

I agree. But still they try. You can bet they know they can't get everyone. But to start they just want to get some, and then they'll get more and more as time and technology allow.

But what we can do to cut it off is to let our state officials know how we feel. Silence is our worst enemy.

 

If can it will be really helpfull for consumers but practically hard to implement.

 

Its not practically possible due to the vast nature of the World Wide Web... there are millions of websites that allows buyers & sellers to interact with each other and every other day a new Internet marketer is born. If it would be limited to amazon, ebay etc then its possibly have been done but, in the current scenario where we don't even know how many sites exists which allows similar kind of platform then how can they force I.M's to have a license which is supposedly to be used on those sites

 

Shows you just how out-of-touch politicians are. The people proposing these laws clearly don't understand the internet, the disassociation between a company trading online and the physical prescence of the site owners who could be on different continents, and the ease with which sites can be moved to different locations and different jurisdictions within minutes (plus a couple of days for DNS propogation). The easy ability to secure accomodation addresses in other countries makes it easy for anyone to have a physical address far removed from their location.

I'm afraid you're correct in your assumption that it's just a cynical money-making enterprise. The legitimate companies with trading offices will be the ones paying for the licenses while the people this proposal is supposed to target will remain largely elusive, unlicensed, and trading from a place far away from these laws where the cost to prosecute will far outweigh the loss of the license fee.

 

very nicely put, if you don't mind me saying so.

It's amazing how out of touch law makers are nowadays...

 

well said.
it seems an another unrealistic goal set by the politicians.

 

This is actually coming because the government now understand the big market created by the internet. However, as to the system to effectively regulate the industry, that is something hard to formulate.

 

Politicians lack deep insight, the actually do not have a clue about global economy.

 

Who is this "they" you speak of? Is there some specific bill or law being proposed in California somewhere or nationally you are talking about? Or is this more just a general anti-government rant?

If you sell online aren't you a retailer/ wholesaler/ distributor and not a mere online or Internet marketer?

 

Each State has there own Laws and interpretation.

 

Ahh, just a general rant and not speaking of any specific law.

 

They cannot just control the states then, what about the worlwide entreprenuers then.. you can have bankaccounts etc in any part of the world.. I dont know.. just my two cents..

 

My opinion is they are going to move towards a "flat tax" on all internet sales. The EU successfully implemented VAT on digital goods, and US companies are responsible for collecting it. I think something similar will be implemented in the States, they really are running out of options and losing salse tax revenue to online purchases.

 

Sounds gross