The Amazon Tax · 14 March, 09:58 PM
At issue: Colorado HB 1193 . The sailent issue: Amazon Fires Affiliates. I received the email, like other affiliates. I didn’t particularly care, since I’ve never made any actual money off affiliate links, but there’s certainly been a big stink and this will likely be a huge issue next election. Actually, some distant derivative will be at issue, i.e. the supposed unfriendliness of Colorado to business vs. the need to do something about the state budget shortfall. There’s been other, less visible fallout: Sylvane Ceases Product Orders to Colorado In Lieu of Internet Sales Tax Law and Hammacher Schlemmer drops Colorado Affiliates, for example.
The Westword also ran a pretty good article on the subject. The main point is that while a number of states have passed laws taxing online purchases, Colorado’s reporting requirements and penalties for violating them are especially stringent and the obvious solution for an online retailer is to collect the tax. As a number of commentators have pointed out, it’s certainly a solved problem for any number of online retailers with a national presence (Wal-Mart, Sears, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc. etc. etc.). Dropping affiliates is simply an effort by Amazon to avoid a “physical presence” with respect to the definition in use in North Carolina, for example. I’ve read claims that this is in fact, not true, that Amazon will still be subject to the reporting requirements, associates or no. I’d guess that Amazon believes otherwise and intends to take the issue to court if pressed.
The trouble is that this is turning into a debate over the “Amazon Tax”. In the end, the Associates program probably serves little purpose for Amazon other than good will. Years ago, it was along the lines of viral marketing; these days, Amazon could probably axe the whole program and never notice the difference – any loss in sales I would think be made up in gains from not paying commissions. The associates program is just advertising, nothing more. The interesting part of the story comes from the smaller businesses who are actually selling something: eBay sellers, 3rd party Amazon merchandisers (i.e. used book sellers, etc.), Etsy merchants; namely the small players using these new online marketplaces to create an online storefront at low cost.
Now where does this stop? Do subscription fees for online content count? The little bit I found on the relevant law would seem to indicate it does, but I’m no tax expert.
— Gordon Weakliem
Comment [1]
Starving the Trolls · 20 February, 09:46 PM
How hard would it be to change the system by just this tiny amount: in order to bring a patent infringement suit, you would have to actually be providing a competing product in the space that you are complaining about – thus showing that there’s actual harm?
James Robertson
I’ve argued that in order for a patent to be enforceable, it should be backed by an actual implementation. The problem with that is with inventors and entrepreneurs seeking patent protection so they can seek help from prospective partners without risking their invention. Maybe there should be a second class of patent for this purpose – with a more limited time frame, to protect entrepreneurs while reducing the risk of purely speculative patents and rewarding failed enterprises that just happened to patent their idea.
Ideas are worthless without execution, and as it is, the practice of patent trolling completely subverts the intended economic incentive behind patents. I’m amazed that corporate America hasn’t thrown their collective weight at Congress and forced reform. I suspect that the attitude is an intellectual property Cold War – the large patent-holders are building a system of mutually assured destruction and regard the patent terrorists as a manageable cost of doing business.
— Gordon Weakliem
Converting Word to PDF on the Cheap · 10 February, 12:20 PM
I maintain the website for my daughter’s preschool, and from time to time I get a Word document that they want posted as a PDF. One of these days I’ll purchase a conversion program, but I needed to do a quick conversion of a couple small documents and in any case I’d rather use someone’s demo-ware than buy something not knowing whether it really worked. I tried a few services:
- PDF Online accepts a Word doc upload and emails you the results. Unfortunately, I never got the email, even after retrying.
- Doc2PDF did the job for free but completely messed up the fonts on one doc – the text was there but it was difficult to read.
- PDF Converter – Ended up doing the job the best. As a free service, it has certain limitations. You’re limited to small documents (no problem in this case), and you’re limited to one conversion every 30 minutes. The pay service is online-only, and membership-based, which is unfortunate – I don’t need to do these conversions all that often and a monthly service doesn’t make sense. That said, I was impressed and if I did need to do Doc => PDF conversions routinely, I would definitely consider them.
— Gordon Weakliem
Comment [1]
Windows, Still Out Of Touch · 4 February, 06:56 AM
You’d think after 30 years or so, someone would have thought to put the touch command into Windows.
copy /b test.txt +,,
I have no idea what the syntax of the command (particularly the ,, part) translates too, but it does work (on Windows XP at least). I told a co-worker about this and his response was “ouch. I’ll bet there’s a better way to do that in powershell”. A cursory check on Google reveals that this has been done, but most definitely not in a one-liner.
— Gordon Weakliem
QOTD · 28 January, 11:19 AM
“Everyone gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” – Gertrude Stein [via Cruft]
Now that is a quote for the ages.
— Gordon Weakliem