The new Italian government of Matteo Renzi first of all decided to retreat from a tax which would force companies advertising and selling in Italy to pay up. It seems that the government made this decision in order to make sure that tech giants like Google and Apple, who make a fortune in Italy, didn’t get to send all their cash to off-shore bank accounts.

In the meantime, some of the industry experts claimed that it could be just another shot fired against Google by Silvio Berlusconi in attempt to protect his own media empire against Google, YouTube, and worldwide web entirely.
The problem is that the law, drafted by Enrico Letta, was very poorly worded. First of all, it appeared easy for multinational companies to get around, while the European Union warned that it was illegal. In response, Graziano Delrio, Renzi's chief of staff, announced at a press conference that the legislation had been cancelled and that was the end of it.
Renzi took to Twitter to brag about cancelling the legislation, which should really annoy ordinary citizens. Apparently, the only victors of his efforts are tech giants who have refused to pay tax in the country. Although the law was a silly idea from the very beginning, Renzi had promised to sort out the cronyism and nepotism which went on between corporations and the government. So, it must be a little annoying that his first act should be bailing out big business.
Italy still has to get the legislation voted out in the next few days.

history repeating itself.