SHANGHAI -- The possible imposition of a so-called 'data tax' on platform developers including giant internet companies has emerged as another facet of President's Xi Jinping's 'common prosperity' drive to share wealth more equitably throughout the nation.
"Platforms that possess large amounts of personal information should return 20% to 30% of revenue generated by transactions to the producers of that data," former Chongqing Mayor Huang Qifan said in a speech at an annual financial conference held here at the end of October. He argued that the benefits gained from data should be returned to society as a whole, including to individuals who produced the data and not just specific stakeholders.
