The French tax authorities are extending the use of a system developed by Google and Capgemini which can identify swimming pools on aerial images and cross-check them with land registry databases to see if they were officially declared.
The Élysée cited business confidentiality when it refused to provide Mediapart with correspondence between presidential advisors and Amazon, Google and others giants of the digital world dating from 2017. However, Mediapart pursued the matter and after a lengthy process the administrative court in Paris found in our favour and we now have access to these documents. Like the recent 'Uber Files' controversy, they show just how closely aligned the thinking and approach of these technological groups is with that of Macron and his entourage. And also like the Uber case, they reveal that a business lobbyist from one of the groups – in this case Amazon - took part in Emmanuel Macron's 2017 presidential campaign. Alexandre Léchenet reports.
With fines of €150 million for Google and €60 million for Facebook, the French privacy watchdog CNIL went much further than other EU watchdogs have gone.
Cédric O says French will not back down on levy despite US threats of trade war and that tax is just tip of the iceberg in terms of new regulations needed to deal with powerful tech giants.
US digital communications giant Google has agreed an almost 1 billion-euro settlement with France's tax authorities, who threatened a potentially more costly legal case against the company for under-declaring revenue in its business in the country by using the loophole that its European headquarters were based in Ireland.
France's data privacy watchdog, the CNIL, on Monday announced it has brought a 50-million-euro fin against US technology and internet search engine giant Google for breaching the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation.
US internet services giant Google and French telecoms company Orange are building a 6,600-kilometre-long 'cutting edge' cable under the Atlantic Ocean linking France and North America, and providing Google with a close connection between its Belgian and North Virginian data centres.
Economy minister Bruno Le Maire said France and Germany would join forces to tackle what he called 'digital platforms' escaping taxes on their business activities in France, notably citing Airbnb as a target.
A Paris administrative court has ruled against the French tax administration claim for back-payments on taxes it claimed were due for the period 2005-2010 when Google and its subsidiary in Ireland were selling a service for inserting online ads to clients in France for years through the California tech giant's search engine.
