Germany Considers New Tax on Google and Meta

So, get this—Germany's thinkin' about hittin' huge online platforms like Google and Meta with a 10% tax. Yeah, like, a tax on what they make there. This whole idea might cause some headaches with the US, especially with Trump potentially coming back. Remember how he got kinda mad about other countries doing this before?

Germany's culture guy, Wolfram Weimer, is the one pushin' for this. He's saying these companies make a ton of money in Germany but don't pay much in taxes. He figures they should be giving back more since they benefit from Germany's media, culture, and stuff. They're apparently working on a plan, but they also wanna talk to the companies first, maybe see if they'd just, like, pay up voluntarily?

Tbh, this tax thing wasn't really a top priority for the German government until now. And it's not totally agreed on yet, so who knows if it'll actually happen. But if they do go for it, they wouldn't be the only ones. Lots of other countries, like the UK, France, and Canada, already have taxes like this.

Trump in the past has looked into hitting back at countries that tax US tech companies. He even said he'd revive those investigations recently. But it seems like Germany isn't backing down. Weimer also thinks these big platforms are getting too powerful and could be messing with things like free speech. He brought up this wild example about Google maybe changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico just 'cause they can. Crazy, right? It makes you wonder, how much power should these platforms really have?