Users across the nation would have preferred a permanent ban preventing state and local governments from taxing Internet access. Instead, they got an almost unanimously approved four-year extension of a moratorium on taxation by the House and an assurance of similar action in the Senate.

What was telling in the 405-2 House vote Tuesday was the opposition to the moratorium by Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Silicon Valley Democrat. She wanted Internet users to be free of any threat of taxation. She was the only Democrat to actually support the party’s “Innovative Agenda.”

We agree with her premise that while the Internet is an integral part of the daily lives of Americans, the U.S. no longer is the leader in its use or access. To have this threat of government taxation hanging over the Internet is counter to supporting further advances in electronic communication, knowledge and participating in democracy.

We are afraid that local, state and federal government will eventually break their promises and misuse the Internet as an ATM to feed their insatiable appetites. The Internet is virgin territory from U.S. government interference, and it should remain that way. The best protection is a permanent ban, not an up-or-down vote by fickle politicians every four years.

What we will get when President Bush signs the legislation (soon, we hope) is a moratorium on taxes on Internet access, double taxation — by two or more states or other entities — of a product or service bought over the Internet and discriminatory taxes that treat Internet purchases differently from other types of sales, and the assurance that, until 2011, governments won’t nickel and dime us for every click on the Web.