Rumbles and Rambles in the Digiverse

The relaunch of Utusan and Kosmo newspapers is slated for Monday  20^th July, 2020. This brave step may see the resurgence of Malay print in the market (also read voters).

But the financial fate of theSun is still precarious as of now. Owners Berjaya Media still have to pull through their PN17 status as approval is pending from Bursa regarding an extension of time to submit regularisation plans.

On a personal branding note, for those who buy fame rather than earn it, honorific titles issued by state rulers have hit a new low in Malaysia. A widespread sale of items bearing the national coat of arms is rampant on online shopping platforms Malaysiakini reports.

Scores of other items related to government enforcement agencies – from the Prisons Department to the Immigration Department, People’s Volunteer Corps’ (Rela), and the Royal Malaysian Air Force are up for sale. Available on Lazada, Carousell and Shoppee (who took remedial steps immediately).

According to TrafficGuard, while online advertising increased in importance as budgets decreased over the past three months, fraudsters are eyeing an influx of new and unaware digital properties as new prey.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) that previously pointed to normal or abnormal performance of marketing efforts are no longer reliable, because of the extreme changes in consumer behaviour and consumer confidence that have accompanied the pandemic.

Dying to catch the common cold: we had a strange question from a reader this week, ”I haven’t had the common cold for sometime now, is my immune system wearing down making me more prone to COVID?

… A widespread sale of items bearing the national coat of arms is rampant on online…

A kind doctor friend answered, “Immune systems are very specific. The best way to make yourself immune to COVID would be to catch COVID. Of course, the default position is to always remain illness-free regardless.”

In other news, Indonesia imposed a 10% value-added tax (VAT) on services by technology firms like Amazon, Netflix, Spotify and Google last week.

The country’s tax office said it has already assigned tax identification numbers to Amazon Web Services, Netflix, Spotify and Alphabet’s Google for its Google Asia Pacific, Google Ireland, and Google LLC units. 

The US Trade Representative office has launched an investigation into Indonesia and other countries for adopting Digital Services Taxes, but Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Muyani Indrawati said the VAT move was not part of it. 

Effective 1st January 2020, service tax is charged and levied on any digital service provided by a foreign registered person (FRP) to consumers in Malaysia. We are the second country in South-East Asia to introduce such a tax, along with Singapore. 

Of course, to be in compliance with Malaysia’s new SST, Google is passing the cost to us by charging 6% Service Tax.

In the name of fair trade, perhaps they don’t consume Malaysian oxygen when doing business with us.

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