[em-bee]

in china, businesses are required to use government managed software that will automatically handle taxes and print on government issued receipt paper. for a while the receipt paper included a scratch field where consumers could win something in order to motivate them to demand a receipt. at least once we won more than we spent. some 2digit amount in dollars.

[gaius_baltar]

In Brazil we have an entire PKI based receipt system, every single purchase generates a full listing record straight to a government database sent in realtime (or later, in "contingency mode" as called, if having network issues). A lot sales also include the customer's personal tax-id... no privacy for any purchase at all. It's required for everything, even a liter of milk from the corner bakery.

This is also the electronic version of an older, paper based system, called Nota Fiscal (lit Fiscal Receipt) ... legally, every single item carried around the country must have one. Of course this was/is a major enabler for selective police action against "undesirable people" moving trivial stuff from a home to another, etc.

[miki123211]

The government-managed (or at least government-certified) software is not just China, but also large parts of the EU.

[chrisjj]

> government-managed (or at least government-certified

Huge difference.

[em-bee]

to be fair, i don't know how much different the chinese management is from a european certification system.

we were told to use specific software. and for sure that software is created by some company that may or may not be government owned. i don't know if there was any choice since, as is typical with foreigners, someone will just tell me their recommendation and not try to explain the differences between choices, unless they matter. ie: just go with the default.

i did have the impression that different regions use different software at least.

i expect that potentially in european countries there are multiple competitors for the same software, but i don't know that either.

so for all i know the amount of choice and control in china could be the same as some countries in europe.

[chrisjj]

I think the point is less ownership and more remote access.

[em-bee]

ah, well, what i had in mind by the term government managed had nothing to do with remote access. i was only thinking about the ownership of the software, not how it works.