In today’s ecommerce news briefs, the debate about Internet sales tax continues, Facebook is shown to be a strong purchase motivator, and ICANN approves new GTLDs.
Internet Sales Taxes Could Become Revenue For State Governments
Across the United States, governments are experiencing budget shortages that have lead to teacher firings, public library and park closings, and elimination or reduction of other public services and programs.
According to some, the stricter regulation of Internet sales tax has the potential to generate revenue for cash-strapped states. As we’ve previously reported, Internet sales tax laws vary by state and have been the subject of many debates between ecommerce merchants, lawmakers, and other concerned parties recently.
One supporter of Internet sales tax law reform is Texas state Democratic Rep. Elliot Naishtat, who supports a bill that if passed, would require more Internet retailers located in other states to collect Texas state sales tax.
“It’s about potentially generating hundreds of millions of dollars for our state,” Rep. Naishtat told the Associated Press recently, as reported by Yahoo! News.
Not everyone agrees that these laws are fair, however.
“There are over 8,000 taxing jurisdictions in the United States,” says Jonathan Johnson, President of Overstock.com, in the same Yahoo! News story, which can be found here. “We think it is wrong that states are trying to cause out-of-state retailers to be their tax collectors.”
1 In 5 Purchasing Decisions Determined By Facebook
How big is Facebook’s sphere of influence? A recent Compete study shows that the social network is a major determining factor in 1 out of 5 purchasing decisions.
According to the study, consumers visit the Facebook pages of retailers and products on a regular basis, and 56 percent of them regularly track promotions and sales on those pages.
When it comes time to purchase, many consumers also turn to their Facebook friends for advice on which products and services to buy.
“Nearly one-half of consumers in the study reported that they are a fan of five or more retailers/brands on Facebook, so the opportunity (to influence consumer purchases) may be largely untapped,” Compete’s Managing Director of Retail and Consumer Products Matt Pace said in the recent study.
“As more data are available to retailers about the benefits of engaging shoppers on Facebook, we’ll likely see more emerging strategies to enable brands to more aggressively tap into this opportunity,” added Pace.
ICANN Expands Number Of GTLDs
Soon, people and corporations registering domain names will have more options than the standard .com, .net, .org, and .biz.
ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers) recently approved an expansion of GTLDs (generic top –level domains) that will go far beyond the 22 GTLDs available today. This means that many new domain name extensions, including branded domain extensions, such as .car or .specific brand, will be available.
“It opens up (what’s) the right of the dot,” Rod Beckstrom, ICANN Chief Executive said at a recent press conference. “When you think .com, .net, think .open to new ideas.”
While these new extensions will make it easier for companies to brand and promote themselves, they may also create trademark issues. ICANN has established a system that it says will help to prevent this.
Under the new system, all proposed domain names are checked against a trademark clearinghouse before being approved. If any trademarked names are illegally registered, says ICANN, they will be taken down immediately and the registrar’s contract will be canceled.
Beginning in January of 2012, applications for registering new GTLDs will be available. The application fee is $185,000, which does not include the $25,000 a year cost of operating the domain name registry, as well as other applicable fees.
