France's Gigabyte Tax Has A Meter Problem 11 Votes To 10, 5.5 Cents A GB, And A Bill That Lands On Whoever Owns The Last Pipe 11 deputies voted yes. 10 voted no. That is how France's National Assembly approved a 5.5-cent tax on every gigabyte sent to French internet users. ---------------------- The amendment (I-1358 to the 2027 budget) passed on Friday, Oct 30, against the advice of both the government and the budget's general rapporteur. A version had already been rejected in the finance committee. The sender of the data pays. Not you, not your ISP. Its authors expect about €10B a year. So who actually ends up paying, and can anyone even measure it? 👇 🔹How The Tax Is Supposed To Work🔹 ISPs measure the data flowing to their customers and identify the sender by its IANA network registration. Every quarter, the totals go to the tax office. Rate: €0.055 per GB. Cap: 15% of the sender's French revenue, or 2% of its global revenue. The authors cite Arcep for about 200 billion GB a year. 200 billion x €0.055 = €11B before caps. Close to the €10B target. The viral "200GB game = €11 tax" math skips two things: the sender pays, and the cap exists. The authors even name video games and streaming as the reason for the cap. 🔹Five Names Carry Half The Traffic🔹 Arcep, end of 2025, share of traffic to French users: Akamai 12%, Netflix 11.6%, Amazon 9.8%, Google 8.9%, Meta 6.7%. Together: 48.9%. On paper, Netflix's 11.6% is about 23 billion GB, so roughly €1.3B before the cap kicks in. For $NFLX, the cap sets the bill, not the gigabytes. 🔹The Clause That Moves The Bill🔹 Akamai is not a streaming app. It delivers other companies' content. The amendment says that when a sender uses a CDN, the volume counted is what leaves the CDN. CDNs don't have to name their clients. They pass the tax on, or not, under their own terms of sale. So $AKAM's 12% doesn't vanish. It becomes a line on someone else's invoice. That is exactly the worry of Minister David Amiel: a big share could fall on smaller players, many of them French. 🔹What The Meter Can't See🔹 The meter identifies a sender by its network registration, not by its app. Traffic served through someone else's network lands on that network's tab. About 21% of traffic already comes from caches sitting inside the ISPs' own networks. The tax follows the pipe. The product behind it is a guess. 🔹Before Anyone Pays (NFA)🔹 ▫️ The Senate and the final budget 📝 This is a first-reading vote. It can still be rewritten or dropped. ▫️ The decree 📝 How the measurement works is left to a decree. No decree, no meter. ▫️ CDN invoices 📝 If a "France data" surcharge appears on CDN contracts, the bill has moved downstream. I'll take it seriously if it survives the Senate with the CDN clause intact. I'll file it as a headline if the final budget drops it or the decree never comes. France wants to tax the content. The meter can only see the pipe.