Is imposing taxes on WhatsApp use legal or not? I hope this is the right SE site to ask this question. Recently, in Lebanon, the government decided to impose a daily tax on the first call made using WhatsApp call feature, equal to 0.2$. Now people are debating whether this is legal or not. Some of them are using this script (emphasis mine): Fees and Taxes. You are responsible for all carrier data plan and other fees and taxes associated with your use of our Services. We may charge you for our Services, including applicable taxes. We may refuse or cancel orders. We do not provide refunds for our Services, except as required by law. Source to claim that this is legal. Others are using this (emphasis mine): Harm to WhatsApp or Our Users. You must not (or assist others to) access, use, copy, adapt, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute, license, sublicense, transfer, display, perform, or otherwise exploit our Services in impermissible or unauthorized manners, or in ways that burden, impair, or harm us, our Services, systems, our users, or others, including that you must not directly or through automated means: (a) reverse engineer, alter, modify, create derivative works from, decompile, or extract code from our Services; (b) send, store, or transmit viruses or other harmful computer code through or onto our Services; (c) gain or attempt to gain unauthorized access to our Services or systems; (d) interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of our Services; (e) create accounts for our Services through unauthorized or automated means; (f) collect the information of or about our users in any impermissible or unauthorized manner; (g) sell, resell, rent, or charge for our Services; or (h) distribute or make our Services available over a network where they could be used by multiple devices at the same time. Source to claim that it's illegal. My simple question is if imposing taxes on using WhatsApp call is legal or not (with the explanation between the different part mentioned above). If not, could WhatsApp sue the Lebanese Government?
Neither of those clauses has anything to do with whether a tax on the use of Whatsapp is legal: The first clause tells users that they are responsible for any taxes that may be owed. It says nothing about whether such a tax is or is not legal. The second clause says that users may not charge for Whatsapp services. It says nothing about whether the government may impose a tax for the use of the services. That is all beside the point, though. Even if the TOS explicitly said, "No one may tax the use of our services," that would have no legal effect. Saying that you're exempt from taxation does not make you exempt from taxation.
When a platform has the right to kick you out as they deem fit, without any evidence why they did it, does that change if you have a paid? It depends on the purpose of payment and the terms &amp; conditions it triggers. Your description reflects that payment entitles the user to have no ads &quot;and stuff&quot; (?). Payment does not necessarily entitle the user to continued access, diligence from customer service, or other features. Without fully knowing the platform's terms &amp; conditions regarding payment it is impossible to identify what obligations (other than not displaying advertisements) your payment creates on the platform. The information you provide here is insufficient for assessing whether you have a viable claim such as fraud or breach of contract. On the other hand, the platform's apparent arbitrariness and lack of response might support a finding of unfair or deceptive practices if the platform does not honor or proportionally reimburse your payment. Many jurisdictions have legislation prohibiting practices which are unfair, deceptive, or unconscionable (example: MCL 445.903). Oftentimes statutory law establishes an agency in charge of addressing customers' complaints.
If the stranger was aware of the reward offer at the time of the return you have a legally binding contract - you made an offer to the world, money for return of the phone, and they accepted it by returning it. If they were ignorant of your offer and returned the phone then there is no contract and you do not have to pay: albeit at the cost of being a jerk. Of course, if they obtained your phone unlawfully (e.g. by stealing it) the contract is void.
The first point that is already well-established in law is that there really is a legal requirement to pay taxes, not just federal income taxes, but taxes in general. On rare occasion, there is a legal dispute as to whether something is a tax (Obamacare) or whether a particular authority is allowed to levy such a tax. Let us assume that the tax in question is legally levied. Some taxes are independent of any specific intended purpose (e.g. federal income tax, state sales tax). Some are for a specific purpose (Medicare tax, the taxes that are local school levies). Even when a taxing authority corruptly but legally misdirects the funds designated for a specific purpose, you are still required to pay the tax. It's not that a tax law could not be written which allows a person to refuse to pay a tax if they judge that the revenues are being misdirected, it's that the law-makers did no cripple the tax law with such a provision. As far as I know, no taxing authority anywhere allows a person to refuse to pay a tax is they disagree with the use of the taxes, which is to say, taxation is mandatory, not voluntary. If it is voluntary, it is known as a &quot;contribution&quot;. You are allowed to contribute to some governmental purpose, you are required to pay taxes. You can't overcome the requirement to pay taxes on First Amendment grounds (being forced to support something that you don't like). The IRS has a FAQ that addresses the First Amendment argument, with a mass of supporting court cases (US v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252; Jenkins v. Commissioner, 483 F.3d 90; US v. Indianapolis Baptist Temple, 224 F.3d 627; Adams v. Commissioner, 170 F.3d 173; US v. Ramsey, 992 F.2d 831; and so on).
Invasion of privacy and false light torts would probably not be applicable here. Very few states have adopted the false light tort because of its conflict with First Amendment principles and there was no agreement or even request to keep the text private. The copyright issue is trickier. First all, the TOS may provide that the copyright belongs to the text service provider or that there is a license. But, even in the absence of an express license, sending someone a message which is equivalent to sending them a letter, probably gives rise to an implied license that the person to whom it is sent can use the message that arises merely from the act of sending it without restriction or qualification. Implied license and fair use also heavily overlap. Publishing the text exactly as it was sent to you protects you from defamation liability because it is true. On the whole it would be extremely unlikely for there to be any legal liability for publishing a text from someone that they sent to you. Of course, one can imagine exceptions. If the person receiving the text was in an attorney-client relationship, or priest-parishioner making confession relationship, or was communicating regarding classified national security matters, or there was a non-disclosure agreement in place, among other possibilities, an evidentiary privilege and duty of confidentiality could apply and disclosing the material without the permission of the privilege holder could breach a duty of confidentiality and give rise to liability. If the picture was a nude picture of a minor, there could be a criminal and/or civil liability issue, and some states have also made posting "revenge porn" a criminal offense and/or a basis for civil liability. If the disclosure was effectively a way to facilitate insider trading that could be a problem. If the contents of the text were accurately transmitted but known to be false and were disseminated without disclosure of its falsity for the purpose of defrauding a third party, that could be a problem. But, no facts that obviously flag any exception are identified in the question. The mere fact that the posting may be embarrassing, or hurt someone's reputation, or was made without someone's express consent, in general, would not be a basis for liability.
In case a company is flooded by such &quot;asymmetric&quot; requests, how should a company react? Although article 12.5 refers to singular &quot;a data subject&quot;, it can be inferred that exposing the controller to significant expenses is not part of the legislative intent. Accordingly, the company may have requesters choose between paying a reasonable fee for the ensuing administrative costs or withdrawing the requirement that delivery be by postal mail. The bad faith scenario you outline seems to be a non-sequitur, since generally a pattern (or a high number) of requests for postal mail delivery should prompt the controller to suspect that some or many might not be legitimate. A requester with bad intentions would be unable to prove the identity of the various data subjects he impersonates or alleges to represent.
Yes, it triggers the GDPR obligations Considerations: Can you surely identify those residing in Europe? In that case you should ask them to sign up again and confirm the consent. A lot of mailing lists are doing just that. Did they previously give consent and you can document it? If so, then you can argue that you have the required consent. Do you have business in Europe? If not then I don't think they would bother to go after you. You could just walk away from the fine. What other personal informastion are you storing? If you know who reside in Europe then you already have more info than just the email. The email address itself wouldn't be much of a documentation issue, SAR or Portability task.
You call their employer and impersonate them The onus is on the employer to keep your personal data secure. If they do not take reasonable steps to verify that the caller is indeed you, they fail that duty and can be held to account. So, not a loophole.