French looking at taxing Google to fund french writers

I have no love lost for Google, but this sounds like using taxes to create an unequal playing field.

President Nicolas Sarkozy instructed his finance ministry to examine the merits of a tax in response to complaints from the French media that Google and other sites are generating advertising income using their news and other content. He also called for an inquiry by French competition authorities into a possible “abuse of dominant position” in the advertising business of big internet sites. . . .

However, Google has run roughshod over property rights.

Last month a Paris court ruled that Google had violated the copyright of authors and publishers by scanning French books held in US libraries without consent. The court ordered the group to stop scanning titles published by La Matinière, the company that brought the case, without prior authorisation, and instructed it to pay €300,000 in damages and interest. . . .