Google, Yahoo! May Face New Online Advertising Tax in France

France should start taxing Internet advertising revenue at Google, Facebook and other online services, a report commissioned by the country's culture ministry said. Funds raised from the levy could help finance projects to increase online cultural content and to pay artists, the report said. The tax could raise up to 20 million euros ($29 million) a year, it said, listing five U.S.-based companies as being the main payers: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo The effort would be aimed at putting an end to "the endless enrichment without payback," Jacques Toubon, one of the authors of the report, was cited as saying by the newspaper Liberation.