News: 0179997074

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

States Seek Extension of Ecommerce Tariff Moratorium at WTO (reuters.com)

(Friday November 07, 2025 @05:25PM (msmash) from the don't-fix-if-it-ain't-broken dept.)


An anonymous reader shares a report:

> A group of states is seeking to extend a World Trade Organization agreement to [1]refrain from placing customs duties on digital transmissions , a World Trade Organization document showed on Thursday. The proposal submitted by Barbados on behalf of a group of African, Caribbean and Pacific states proposed to extend the current moratorium -- a key pillar of internet development for decades -- beyond March 2026, when it was set to expire.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/states-seek-extension-e-commerce-tariff-moratorium-wto-2025-11-06/



"digital transmissions" (Score:1)

by Venova ( 6474140 )

what exactly does that even mean here? does it apply to microtransactions of gacha games? just transmission of data itself? in any case it seems bad to start tariffing such literally ephemeral things?

Re: (Score:3)

by dimeglio ( 456244 )

Does it block tariffs on outsourced labour such as code written in India or elsewhere?

There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix
your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be,
but don't think it. :-) Larry Wall in <7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>