Technology, combined to freedom of expression, is a potent vehicle for citizens to be heard in a more instantaneous and collaborative fashion.  Yet, there are many barriers to fulfilling the full potential of technology as an enabler to human rights. The EIF event – Foreign policy – human rights aspects of ICT – discussed the potential and limitations of human rights and ICT

The participants were:

Marietje Schaake, MEP and EIF Governor

Views from the European Commission: the institutional dimension Andrea Glorioso, Coordinator of the Internet Policy and Governance Team at the European Commission DG INFSO

Views from the civil society: the NGO dimension Margaret Wachenfeld, Senior Legal Advisor at the Institute for Human Rights and Business

Views from the advocacy community: Daniel Calingaert, Vice President of Policy and External Affairs at Freedom House

Some key points:

Free societies provide more business opportunities.

The disconnect strategy(cutting off people from the Internet)  is a violation of human rights

Engagement strategy for ICT and human rights:

1) Tools provide and training

2) Relationship with businesses

3) European capability

4) Cooperation with parties

Technology brings a new audience to the discussion

Ignorance of human rights violation and misuse of technology (for companies) is no longer an excuse

Remedy for human rights violations could be an issue in the future

Many of the violaters of human rights are seeking to occupy the Internet (ie put their own message across strongly/on search engines etc)

Peter Linton raised the question of lawful intercept authorised in the ITU convention and it’s implications

I raised the question of US / EU engagement strategy in the context of ‘Internet in a suitcase’ ie active engagement from the US

The audio recordings HERE

Image source: NY times  ‘Internet in a suitcase’

The recent EIF event The reform of the European data protection legislation provided an insightful discussion on the forthcoming changes to the European data protection regulation.

Some notes from this event

The current directive is 17 years old .. and needs to be enhanced because of the changed nature of society driven by the Internet

Key considerations in the regulation are:

To reinforce the rights of the individuals

Transparency

Control of data (ability to withdraw from net / delete your own data)

To ensure that data about you is accurate

Right to be forgotten

The regulation is also a part of the Single market

Savings for business(estimated to be 2.5 billion euros) through a single point of compliance and uniform interpretation

The regulation would include fines for non compliance

In the EU, privacy is a fundamental right vs. US it is a consumer protection issue

The regulation affects any company that offers services to EU citizens

SMEs are excluded from the bureaucracy (but not the spirit of the law)

This regulation affects many businesses – and not just in the EU – we expect it will be an ongoing discussion

Image source: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/newsroom/data-protection/news/120125_en.htm

Over 200 member state and European institution decision makers, representatives of business, academia, and civil society met to discuss how to reduce barriers to a digital single market (DSM) in Europe. View the agenda here.  @PolicyBloggers aided in the online animation of the conference via Twitter.

The conclusion of the conference was encapsulated in four key messages: connectivity, trust, digital mindset, and data. The conference generated many views and ideas, and created debate. There was a sense of urgency that decisions need to be made to create a digital single market, and broader digital agenda, work. But the “how” question – how we will create a DSM, was not answered. Rather this was a conference to set the agenda and key questions that need answering amongst all DSM stakeholders. The 4 minute video Echoes from the Digital Single Market Conference captures the mood, while the more determined can also view all 50+ videos of the conference presentation, ably moderated by Lara Srivastava. As always, data on how member states are performing in the DSM and other Digital Agenda metrics can be found on the scoreboard website.

The event was opened by Ole Sohn [watch], Minister for Business and Growth, Denmark, and Anthony Whelan, head of cabinet to VP Neelie Kroes, European Commission. They cited the many areas of focus for the DSM initiative: copyright, internet TV, open data, broadband capacity, privacy and data portability and the impact of cloud computing, and the level European citizens’ engagement with the internet.

Setting the scene [watch]

The conference kicked off with an amusing video asking students if they had heard of the digital single market. The results were predictable. It was followed by a sobering speech from Luc Soete, of the UNU Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute, asking if 20 years had been wasted, given 1995 would have been the ideal time to set up the Digital Agenda for Europe, of which the DSM is a central pillar. He raised the question of whether DSM is an extension of the single market, or something different. He also seemed rather pessimistic on whether innovation was now destroying more than it was creating, and the theme of creative-destruction resonated through the rest of the conference, though mostly with the more constructive theme of directing investment to growing markets rather than attempting to prop up large but inevitably declining industries.

Next up the US ambassador to the EU, William Kennard countered that the productivity gains of IT were key and also pushed for still closer working between the US and EU, citing the “narcissism of minor differences” (the title of a book by Peter Baldwin). The Chinese and Indians are not going to wait for us to work out our small differences.  He concluded by noting that in the US over the ten years to 2005, 50% of start-ups had an immigrant as founder or co-founder.

Ed Vaizey, minister for culture, communications and creative industries in the UK and Catherine Trautmann, MEP, concluded the session – the former, after noting the UK’s fixation with Danish TV series,  concentrating on the need for Europe-wide legislation for the likes of spectrum allocation and dispute resolution without being over-bearing, the latter focused on the different behaviour of member states, the decline of manufacturing in the EU, the €9bn Trans European Networks investment, and the open data initiative. Her reference to ACTA (anti counterfeiting legislation) drove a lot of twitter comments.

The rest of the two day conference saw round-table discussions and presentations on digital single market topics. While these were meant to focus on particular issues, almost all lapsed into a discussion on the vexed question of what DSM actually means, and the 27 separate vs unified 28^th regime question. We summarise several of the sessions below.

Promoting e-business innovation [watch]

The benefits of technology for GDP growth and job creation were discussed. Rolf Nordqvist of Bisnode AS noted that in Nordic countries, 80% of public sector information is made available, in the south of Europe it is just 20%, so he reiterated the need for PSI legislation.  Facebook’s head of EU policy, Erika Mann, stated that social media is still a young industry and Europe mustn’t get DSM wrong and create a barrier to innovation. She estimates that Facebook supports 230,000 jobs thanks to companies such as Spotify that use the Facebook platform. She said that Europe was even more fragmented than many realize and that different data policies, even amongst different Länder in Germany, can be a real burden to online companies.

Eric Hazan, a McKinsey partner, noted that Sweden and the UK lead online business in Europe, but for very different reasons. Sweden is very policy driven with government promotion of B2B and B2C interaction. In the UK it is driven by the penetration of ecommerce in sectors such as finance and travel.

Roundtable – digital economy growth and jobs driver [watch]

This round table led to some good discussion and radical proposals. Bruno Lanvin, of eLab INSEAD noted that learning from failure is an Anglo Saxon concept that the rest of Europe could benefit from adopting. It is about mindsets, not just minds. Harry van Dorenmalen, chairman of IBM Europe reignited the constructive-destruction debate noting that growth can be painful and that governments could not just cut, to grow.  Thomas Spiller of Disney commented on the creativity and talent in Europe, in the year a French actor wins an Oscar for a silent movie. 3 cinemas a day are being built in China, so a growing market. Simon Hampton of Google reminded everyone of the grain of rice on a chessboard story, and noted that we are barely halfway through the internet’s exponential growth. He cited the Copenhagen window cleaner that now quotes for business using Google Streetview’s image of your building. Using data efficiently is a big efficiency driver – knowledge workers spend 5 hours a week in research activity.

Esko Aho of Nokia and former prime minister of Finland was particularly provocative citing the need to skate where the puck will be (a famous Wayne Gretsky quotation) and pushing for a 28^th regime for European online business. Think radically – in Finland boys learn English faster because of the computer games they play. If this works, use it.  It is crazy to need 27 different licenses to sell across Europe. There is too much self interest. And why do we spend money on roads and bridges (the old economy) rather than the new? Stop blaming the financial sector, this is about low economic growth.

Always on – all across Europe [watch]

Pierre Delsaux of the Internal market and Services DG kicked off this session by urging the debate to focus on how to make DSM work – whether it is a good idea is not in question. Arcane issues such as the sizes of letter boxes and different parcel delivery systems are creating a bottleneck to e-commerce standards in Europe.

Linnar Vilk of the Estonian Information Technology College gave a stirring presentation on Estonia’s rapid internet penetration growth on 1/5^th the IT spend per capita of the EU average.  Sylvie Forbin of Vivendi cited the need for fast connections and how slower internet speeds harm e-commerce. She also spent some time on the rather Vivendi specific issue of lack of demand for foreign language films across Europe.

Monique Goyens DG of the European Consumers Organisation railed against the fact that digital services are not offered across Europe – Spotify for instance is not available in Greece. She extended her criticism to Visa’s sponsorship of the London Olympics and the need to pay for tickets using a Visa Card. Responding to the foreign language film issue she made the good point that of course there is no such thing as pan European demand – you cannot eradicate distance and language.  Similarly,  there is no “right to buy” – a Belgian yoghurt maker does not have to offer service across Europe. She wants the term cross-border to disappear within Europe.

Pablo Arias Echeverria, MEP, raised the concern that mistakes made with the original single market are being transposed to digital. 27 different rules for everything from VAT to postal delivery. Ironically language is less of an issue thanks to 1-click translation.

Strengthening the environment for web entrepreneurs  [watch]

Ann Mettler co-founder of the Lisbon Council and author of The Rise of the MicroMultinational continued the theme of policy needing to change radically. There is no need for enormous global firms to be created today when so much can be outsourced, and so policy should shift to enabling small firms, and also getting the self-employed to start employing others. 15% of the workforce is self employed, that is 33m people, of whom 23m are freelancers. Policymakers can’t cope with the destructive aspect of creative destruction, and are too tied to old ways, which means they are by definition not plugged into the way entrepreneurs and new businesses work. Having said this – the author’s impression was of a relatively well briefed audience (we were educated on SSL (secure socket layer) protocol by an EC official during one coffee break).

Bas Kotterink of TNO noted how US graduates have a much more entrepreneurial mindset, and concluded that business skills should be taught and encouraged at school. Viorel Peca of the DG Information Society and Media backed this up with stats on venture capital dollars per capita: $144 in Israel, $72 in the US, and just $7 in the EU. Alex Farcet of Startupbootcamp and Nikolaj Nyholm of Sunstone Capital represented the start up and financing community.

Links to discussions and articles on the conference

http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/a-digital-single-market-by-2015-%E2%80%93-one-step-closer/

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Single-Market-2015-European-3791690.S.99030441

http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/analysis/2156145/analysis-single-digital-market-boost-commerce

http://blog.jameselles.com/2012/03/digital-single-market-2015-falling-behind-schedule/

http://esharp.eu/big-debates/the-digital-agenda/29-a-digital-single-market-by-2015/

by Andrew Griffin

Here are the Digital policy stories that are creating conversation on the web for April.

Let’s start with a truly bizarre story .. For all the complaints of private companies exploiting privacy, government often is one of the biggest culprits. You could not make this up!!

It has emerged that Michigan State Police have been using a high-tech mobile forensics device that can extract information from over 3,000 models of mobile phone, potentially grabbing all media content from your iPhone in under two minutes. The CelleBrite UFED is a handheld device that Michigan officers have been using since August 2008 to copy information from mobile phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The device can circumvent password restrictions and extract existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags. In short, it can copy everything on your smartphone in a matter of minutes.

Learning that the police had been using mobile forensic devices, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has issued freedom of information requests which demand that state officials open up the data collected, to better assess if penalised motorists warrant having their data copied. Michigan State Police were more than happy to provide the information – as long as the ACLU paid $544,680. Obviously not pocket change. – (US Police Can Copy Your iPhone’s Contents In Under Two Minutes – The Next Webthenextweb.com)

Disruption and Innovation

Fortunately, to balance the outlandish privacy story, we have a lot of good news on innovation anddisruption!

The NY times asks: Why was a small start-up with only 13 employees able to build Instagram while a company like Eastman Kodak, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection, was not? (Disruptions: Innovations Like Instagram Are Tough for Large Companies –  NYTimes.combits.blogs.nytimes.com)

Wired magazine does an excellent analysis on how to spot the future( How to Spot the Future | Epicenter | Wired.comwww.wired.com)

Following the same theme, 8 Visionaries discuss How They Spot Wired: http://ow.ly/1L9Ocq – for example – Paul Saffo  indicated ‘inversion’ where you see something that’s out of place. For example – when the Mexican police captured the head of a drug cartel, in the photos the perpetrators were looking proudly at the camera while the cops were wearing ski masks. Usually it’s the reverse. To me that was an indicator that Mexico was very far from winning its war against the cartels.

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement has gained unstoppable momentum – BYOD is unstoppable. Smart companies must build apps — Tech News and Analysisgigaom.comand also BYOD: Are businesses prepared? | ZDNetwww.zdnet.com – Bring your own device schemes — cropping up in schools and businesses across the West.

The economist says – A third revolution is under way. Manufacturing is going digital– Manufacturing: The third industrial revolution | The Economistwww.economist.com

Exasperated by rising subscription costs charged by academic publishers, Harvard University has encouraged its faculty members to make their research freely available through open access journals and to resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls. (Harvard University says it can’t afford journal publishers’ prices | Science | The Guardianwww.guardian.co.uk –)  and Crowdfunding’s Next Frontier: Academic Research? | Inside Higher Edwww.insidehighered.com

The Raspberry Pi launches – Lesser-spotted Raspberry Pi FINALLY dished up •   Hardware is emulating software. There is a curious twist in the development of the Raspberry Pi – The Raspberry Pi team did not seek  CE marking — a certification that ensures the manufacturer has complied with European regulations because it believed the single-board computer was not a “finished end product” and did not require the certification.   $35 Raspberry Pi Linux PC delayed once again

Wired magazine claims that – “Even if you have no idea what your Klout score is, there’s a chance that it’s already affecting your life” http://bit.ly/JqtL2G

IBM, Honda Try Connecting EVs Directly to Utilities : Greentech Mediawww.greentechmedia.com – Electric vehicles are inherently connected to the power grid. But truly integrating the cars into grid operations is another matter altogether. IBM, Honda and Pacific Gas & Electric have teamed up to test the communications between the Honda Fit’s onboard telematics and the utility’s back office. The pilot, which involves fewer than 10 real cars and more simulated scenarios, is investigating the connection between the car and the utility to receive messages about charging and grid events.

Synthetic DNA substitute gets its own enzymes, undergoes evolutionarstechnica.com On Earth, all life is dependent upon the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. But researchers including those who are wondering how to detect life somewhere other than Earth, have wondered whether other information-bearing polymers might also serve this purpose. Is there something special about DNA and RNA, or did they just happen to be the first things that work? The answer to that question would not only have implications for the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere, but it might have practical uses. Researchers have now taken a major step towards showing that alternatives can actually work as genetic material.

Kenya’s High Court Rules Anti-Counterfeiting Law Is Unconstitutional Because It Threatens Access To Generic Drugs | Techdirtwww.techdirt.com – Back in 2009, Techdirt wrote about an interesting challenge to a then-new law against counterfeits in Kenya, on the grounds that it might be used to stop perfectly legal generic variants of drugs being imported into the country. That matters, because around 90% of drugs used in Kenya are generics, which means that blocking them would have serious implications for healthcare in that country.

Gamification (From Angry Birds to Draw Something: how gamification can work for you | Voluntary Sector Network | Guardian Professionalwww.guardian.co.uk) and data journalism(Step by step: how to start in a data journalist role | Online Journalism Blogonlinejournalismblog.com)  also deserve mentions.

Mobile and Telecoms

Telecoms and mobile industry faces some legal and regulatory challenges.

Cellphone companies are objecting to proposed California legislation that would force them to publicly report the number of times they turn over cellphone location information to police and federal agents, arguing that it’s too burdensome, and would take time away from the important work of sharing customer data with cops “day and night.” (Mobile Carriers Lobby Against Cellphone Location Privacy Bill | Threat Level | Wired.comwww.wired.com)

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on online video,  Free Press, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, and New America Foundation argue that it should be used to investigate ISP-imposed data caps. If data caps had a legitimate economic justification, they might be just a necessary annoyance. But they do not have such a justification. Arbitrary caps and limits are imposed by multichannel video providers that also provide broadband Internet access, because the providers have a strong incentive and ability to protect their legacy, linear video distribution models from emerging online video competition. (Why Do ISPs Impose Data Caps?techliberation.com –  )

A proposal to ban “cramming,” the practice of letting unauthorized third parties place charges onto telephone bills is under discussion. (Proposed rule banning ‘cramming’ tops FCC open meeting agenda – The Hill’s Hillicon Valleythehill.com –)

Mobile apps see two key discussions: around UDID and HTML5.

The UDID is a unique alphanumeric number attached to your iOS device. All iPhones, iPad, and iPod Touch devices have one. The main use of UDID in most apps was to track data. Apple has disallowed access to UDIDs. Hence, the hunt is on to find alternatives to UDID OpenUDID, a new, open-source identification scheme created by marketing company Appsfire, says it has rounded up support from 17 mobile advertising companies (including itself) as developers look for alternatives to the UDID.(OpenUDID Gets Back-Up From 17 Mobile Ad Companies In The Hunt For UDID Alternatives | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com)

While native and HTML5 apps are getting similar with the evolution of HTML5, the fact remains that consumers have shown a surprising willingness to pay a dollar or five for an app, but not the equivalent amount for access to a website that performs the same functions. (Are Apple and Google Playing HTML5 Chess with Facebook? – Forbeswww.forbes.com )

Privacy

We covered ‘girls around you’ in last month’s edition – now it seems the app is gone but the discussion still remains. The app is interesting since it is merely accessing data that is already given away by users – but in ways not intended by the data owners .. ( This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, its A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy [Update] | Cult of Macwww.cultofmac.com )

Privacy tools continue to get complex – Every click you make .. every move you make – the robots are watching you ..  (Your Privacy Is Tested With Every Click You Make – NYTimes.comwww.nytimes.com)

Google launches the Google drive amid familiar privacy concerns – How far does Google Drive’s terms go in ‘owning’ your files? | ZDNetwww.zdnet.com

Facebook apps rated on privacy protection – USATODAY.comwww.usatoday.com – A new service that grades how each of Facebook’s top third-party apps respects consumers’ privacy was released late Sunday by research firm PrivacyChoice. The free tool, Privacyscore for Facebook, spells out privacy policies and tracking practices of more than 200 top Facebook apps, including games, work-related programs and sharing apps.

Internet freedom and governance

It was also a big month for Internet governance in Pakistan (Pakistan Internet Filtering Scare: Citizens await answers | Bytes for All, Pakistancontent.bytesforall.pk), China (China’s mysterious Internet outage; speculation over a ‘kill switch’ | ZDNetwww.zdnet.com, The UK (The UK government’s war on internet freedom – Opinion – Al Jazeera Englishwww.aljazeera.com)

Russia (Nervous Kremlin seeks to purge Russia’s internet of ‘western’ influences | Technology | The Guardianwww.guardian.co.uk)

The Internet Gets a Hall of Fame (Including Al Gore!),  http://bit.ly/Jrs9ul . The inaugural group includes 33 of the net’s most influential engineers, evangelists and entrepreneurs including internet fathers Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf; internet standards guru Jon Postel; web inventor Tim Berners-Lee; encryption pioneer Phil Zimmermann; and Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker. Meanwhile governments continue to censor the Internet in many countries(Internet censorship: how does each country compare? | Datablog | Technology | guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.uk) and Sergey Brin warns that Web freedom faces greatest threat ever,  - Meanwhile, the U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors (Internet in a suitcase)

Cloud

The patriot act continues to cast dark clouds on cloud computing with the United States’ global trade representative strongly criticising a perceived preference on the part of large Australian organisations for hosting their data on-shore in Australia, claiming it created a significant trade barrier for US technology firms based on a misinterpretation of the US Patriot Act (US slams Australia’s on-shore cloud fixation | Delimiterdelimiter.com.au – ) Open stack continues its momentum(OpenStack Momentum Is Amazingwww.cloudave.com ) and we explore multiple ways of implementing single sign-on (SSO) (- 3 Approaches to Securing Identity in the Cloudwww.readwriteweb.com)

Security

Security, specifically CISPA, played a major role in the Internet discussions.

CISPA sets up a mechanism for the government’s security services to share information on new threats with private companies and utilities. In return, those companies can share data on their users with the government if requested, and the bill protects them from legal fallout. Data sharing is voluntary and some data can be stripped of identifying features. However, techdirt says that CISPA Is A Really Bad Bill,  The problems arise from the definitions of these terms, especially when it comes to companies sharing data with the feds. The bill defines “cybersecurity systems” and “cyber threat information” as anything to do with protecting a network from:‘(A) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or ‘(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.

Facebook defends support for CISPA monitoring bill • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk -

But the EFF says  What Facebook Wants in Cybersecurity Doesn’t Require Trampling On Our Privacy Rights .  The CDT also paints a similar picture (CISPA: Progress, but Flaws Remain)

Apart from CISPA, Brian X. Chen says Don’t use Marriot hotels’ sleazy Wi-Fi – Boing Boingboingboing.net – because the hotel’s Internet service was secretly injecting lines of code into every page he visited,

Rick Falkvinge of the pirate party says: Just Because It’s Now Cheaper And Easier To Spy On Everyone All The Time, Doesn’t Mean Governments Should Do It | Techdirtwww.techdirt.com –  with the observation that the key trick employed here was to claim that the change was just to “compensate for technical developments”, and that there was some kind of equivalence between the eavesdropping on phone calls via satellites and those made via fiber optics. Significantly, this is exactly the same argument that the UK government is making with what it calls its “Communications Capabilities Development Programme” (pdf):

Open Data

Historically, Canada has been a world leader in making information available and in being accountable to its citizens. Government of Canada legislation, policies, and practices have consistently advanced transparency and openness. A discussion on the past and future of the Canadian government’s Open data policies (Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government 2 / 5www.ouvert.gc.ca ).

Nasa announces Version 2 of Nasa’s open government plan (A Plan for Openness – open.NASAopen.nasa.gov -    )  

The government is moving forward with a plan to make local television stations post information about political advertising on a central Web site. Owners of local stations have tried to block the proposal, but it appears likely to be approved – F.C.C. Pushes for Web Site on Political Ad Spending on TV – NYTimes.comwww.nytimes.com. An activist for open government says unlocking the paywall on open information will spur innovation. (One Man’s Quest to Make Information Free – Businessweekwww.businessweek.com  )

And finally, here are 30 Places to Find Open Data on the Web | Visual.ly Blogblog.visual.ly

Media and content

In the evolution of media and content, Clay Shirky makes a case for social reading –( How We Will Read: Clay Shirkyblog.findings.com). We have a discussion on how feasible it is to borrow E-books(E-Books Are Easier to Borrow, Just Be Prepared to Wait – NYTimes.comwww.nytimes.com)

Following an investigation by the UK’s Competition Commission (Ofcom), into anti-competitive movie deals in the UK, the regulator says that there is no clear evidence that LoveFilm or Netflix have changed BSkyb’s dominance in the market.(Ofcom says LOVEFiLM and Netflix are Not Substitutes for Sky Moviesthenextweb.com -)

Should the NYT charge for early access to the news? — Tech News and Analysisgigaom.com

Everyone seems to be adopting social media for innovation – even the Taliban is into social media – “Your questions and Zabihullah Mujahid’s answers”, invites readers from all over the world to leave questions – to the Taliban – (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17852902) and keeping in touch with the recent EIF event on human rights Foreign policy – human rights aspect of ICT - Chinese blogger (He Peirong) had a key role to play in helping the blind activist Chen Guangcheng to escape ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9232991/Chinese-activist-Chen-Guangcheng-sheltering-in-US-embassy-in-Beijing.html)

Standards and IPR

The Google/Oracle case dominates the IPR debate. Jonathan Zittrain talks of the demerits of software patents and says - That’s why the key to today’s battles over intellectual property lies with derivative works: once Lego claims ownership to anything built with its blocs, or Oracle to anything written in Java, whole swaths of creativity and innovation are blocked to no good end. (Don’t let software patents stop us standing on the shoulders of giants | Jonathan Zittrain | Comment is free | guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.uk)

Taking a similar line, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) called the Oracle suit “unjustifiable”. (Larry vs Larry: Oracle and Google in courtroom smackdown • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk)  and says that: “One of the great benefits of free software is that it allows programs to be combined in ways that none of the original developers would’ve anticipated, to create something new and exciting,” said FSF licence compliance engineer Brett Smith after the suit was first filed.”Oracle is signalling to the world that they intend to limit everyone’s ability to do this with Java,” he added. ®

The Web and the Internet

The Pew research center continues to monitor the evolution of the Internet(Digital differences | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projectpewinternet.org)  as we question if our behaviour is changing due to the web (The Sharing Economy: Is The Internet Making us More Honest?thenextweb.com).

The European country where Skype was born made a conscious decision to embrace the web after shaking off Soviet shackles (How tiny Estonia stepped out of USSR’s shadow to become an internet titan | Technology | The Guardianwww.guardian.co.uk – )

The Web itself continues to evolve. Mozilla recently published a demo of standards-based video chat in an experimental build of Firefox. The functionality is built with the Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC) standard, which aims to support streaming audio and video communication on the Web without relying on plugins – (HTML5 roundup: Mozilla demos standards-based video chat in Firefoxarstechnica.com)

On the dark side, Sophos Concurs: India Is The World’s Biggest Source Of Spamthenextweb.com and privacy continues to affect the Internet giants(Me and my data: how much do the internet giants really know?)

Finally, we wonder if we are encountering a new bubble (CAPITALISM without PROFITS – Welcome to the Instagram Era! • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk)

This concludes our eventful Digital Policy analysis for April!

Kind rgds

Ajit

Spring has sprung .. And a year ago – it was the Arab spring – the repercussions of which, are still being felt. The Internet is at the root of social transformations like the Arab spring. At the policy bloggers network, we track the impact of the Internet on digital policy – in many areas. The monthly newsletters also track trends – including ‘under the radar’ trends relevant to policy makers.
Here is our analysis for March ..

In this newsletter, we look at the Internet and the elements of the Internet(Internet governance, Privacy, Human rights, Social media, Security, IPR, Cloud, Standards and Transatlantic collaboration) followed by the areas impacted by the Internet for Digital technology policy(Smart energy, Healthcare, Telecoms and Mobile, Evolution of news, Evolution of media and Innovation)

Let’s start with this wonderful infographic from Intel which shows us what happens in an ‘Internet minute’ (and what will happen soon ..)

Here are some more details by segment ..

Internet governance and human rights

All over the world, governments continue to assert their rights over the Internet. Not just Iran and North Korea but Pakistan (Pakistan Internet Filtering Scare: Citizens await answers | Bytes for All, Pakistancontent.bytesforall.pk),  the UK (Internet activity ‘to be monitored’ under new laws) and China with a rumoured coup(China’s censors out in force as coup rumours spread • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk ) .

Meanwhile, at a human level, we always ask why are there not more women in technology (Why aren’t there more women in technology? Here are a few clues | Technology | guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.uk)  and bloggers continue to be restrained(Human Rights and Free Expression Groups Demand Release of Vietnamese Bloggers | Electronic Frontier Foundationwww.eff.org)   and citizen journalists get rights to record activities of law enforcement in Boston( After a major First Amendment ruling, Boston police settle a cellphone recording lawsuit » Nieman Journalism Labwww.niemanlab.org)

Surprisingly, even the most astute politicians struggle with the impact of the Internet (Bloomberg Says Social Media Can Hurt Governing – NYTimes.comwww.nytimes.com). When it comes to social media, Mayor Bloomberg has a few concerns and speaks of the difficulties of leading a city into the future amid a political culture that is often focused on the short term. Mayor Bloomberg says – “Social media is going to make it even more difficult to make long-term investments” and that “We are basically having a referendum on every single thing that we do every day,”. Amongst all this, we must not forget that the Internet Accounts for 4.7% of the U.S. Economy [STUDY]mashable.com

Privacy

But we are constantly reminded of the dark side of the Internet and in March – it was the ‘Girls around me’ application (This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It’s A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy [Update] | Cult of Macwww.cultofmac.com).  Girls Around Me is a standard geolocation based maps app but it does what it says on the box – i.e. through a combination of facebook profiles, foursquare profiles etc – identifies ‘Girls around me’ – without their consent. There has been a predictable backlash against Girls around me application from the industry (Foursquare shuts off API access to creepy app, Girls Around Methenextweb.com)

Meanwhile, amid extra scrutiny from Congress around privacy issues, Apple this week has started rejecting apps that access UDIDs, or identification numbers that are unique to every iPhone and iPad.(Amid Privacy Concerns, Apple Has Started Rejecting Apps That Access UDIDs | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com) and a storm is brewing with employers demanding Facebook passwords (ACLU: Facebook password isn’t your boss’ business – CNN.comwww.cnn.com)

We continue to push privacy boundaries (Japan Court Tells Google to Disable Autocompletethenextweb.com)  and the privacy violations continue( RockYou to pay FTC $250K after breach of 32M passwords – SC Magazinewww.scmagazine.com) And EU Commissioner: US Should Catch Up with Europe on Data Privacy

Smart energy

There is BIG news in the Smart energy segment with the Green button initiative but first we have the 100 networked grid movers and shakers(The Networked Grid 100: The Movers and Shakers of the Smart Grid in 2012 :Greentech Mediawww.greentechmedia.com)

The Green button is the big news of the month (“Green Button” Open Data Just Created an App Market for 27M US Homeswww.readwriteweb.com).

The Green button is the project launched by former US CTO Aneesh Chopra to unleash energy data. The Obama Administration announced that nine major utilities and electricity suppliers have committed to using and extending the Green Button to enable some 15 million households to access data about their energy usage. Similar to the Blue Button for healthcare data, the White House asserts that providing energy consumers with secure access to information about energy usage will increase innovation in the sector and empower citizens with more information. The Green Button is like OAuth for energy data. It is a simple standard that the utilities can implement on one side and web/mobile developers can implement on the other side. And the result is a ton of information sharing about energy consumption and in all likelihood energy savings that result from more informed consumers.

The Green Button gets a lot of coverage(The Green Button Goes Commercial : Greentech Mediawww.greentechmedia.com) and (Apps for Energy looks to jumpstart open innovation around the Green Button | Gov 2.0: The Power of Platformsgov20.govfresh.com)

Social media

Social media is the driver to all the change .. and this month – Twitter turns six Happy Sixth Birthday, Twitter – Bo Kim – Voices – AllThingsDallthingsd.com.  However, the focus has already shifted to the new kid on the block – Pinterest (As Pinterest grows visitors 52% in one month, journalism profs find news uses for it | Poynter.www.poynter.org)  and there are questions if Is Pinterest the next Facebook? – Fortune Techtech.fortune.cnn.com and How much does Pinterest actually make? — Tech News and Analysisgigaom.com with speculation on its valuation (What kind of revenue numbers would justify Pinterest’s $200 million valuation?). Even the president is on Pinterest (The president now pinning on Pinterest – :: Future of Journalismwww.nextlevelofnews.com)

Also as social media platforms like Twitter mature we see the phenomenon of Twitter quitters (Twitter quitters: increasing numbers of celebrities leave the site – Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk) and High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets | Techdirtwww.techdirt.com

Finally, this month we also see DC’s Top Ten Influencers in Social Media | InTheCapitalinthecapital.com

Cloud

Like social media, the Cloud also continues to evolve and shape the Internet. The debates around Private cloud continue – (Private cloud-public cloud schism is a meaningless distraction | Cloud Computing – InfoWorldwww.infoworld.com) – As does thinking around the Civic cloud(Is the Civic Cloud the Next Big (er, Small) Thing? | Cloudline | Wired.comwww.wired.com). Major initiatives like the UK’s G-cloud are still being played out( Whitehall’s G-Cloud: Hype or hope? • Channel Registerwww.channelregister.co.uk) It appears that the G-Cloud is not quite what it seems. As per the register, for now, the G-Cloud is merely two things: “a way to approve and certify software, hardware and services from technology companies – from handsets and calling plans to hosted email and collaboration services, and something the government calls Cloudstore, which lists the services and the contact details of their suppliers.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese search firm Baidu has launched a cloud storage service in the country, bringing it into competition with local rival Alibaba, as well as Dropbox, Microsoft and others in the space, according to Techweb [Chinese]. (Baidu Launches Cloud Storage Service in Betathenextweb.com)

Finally, we see the Top 10 cloud computing leaders in 2012 – Top 10 cloud computing leaders in 2012searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com

Security

In the security space:

1)      3 Approaches to Securing Identity in the Cloudwww.readwriteweb.com Today, there are a multitude of alternative architectures put forth by services opting to be your one source for identity, and ReadWriteWeb has chosen to spotlight three of them.

2)      Former cybersecurity czar: Every major U.S. company has been hacked by China | ITworldwww.itworld.com Former White House cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke has made a career out of issuing security warnings.

3)      The Europol is announced: Europe to assemble crack cyber-intelligence nerve centre • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk

 Standards

1)      2015 is the time when royalties will be charged for MPEG-LA – The time bomb called H.264 is set to explode in 2015. Are you watching?www.freesoftwaremagazine.com

2)      Silicon Valley leads the world in technology but it’s losing a debate over how that technology should be used. A new surge in patent lawsuits shows that Chicago, not Silicon Valley, is setting the rules for how patents should encourage innovation. – How Chicago Is Beating Silicon Valley At The Patent Game | paidContentpaidcontent.org

Healthcare

The Internet and Social media affect many domains – such as healthcare. In The problem with social media and healthwww.kevinmd.com  the author considers the view that “Social media is absolutely wonderful at spreading new ideas, new being the operative word. In order for social media to exist and function, it must engage users on a daily basis. And therein lies the problem with social media and health. But to understand this, we have to define health to users.”

In research as well there is speculation that citations of journal articles and the impact factor are widely used measures of scientific impact. Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and social bookmarking tools provide the possibility to construct article-level or journal-level metrics to gauge impact and influence. (CasesBlog – Medical and Health Blog: The Number of Tweets Predicts Future Citations of a Specific Journal Articlecasesblog.blogspot.com)

But there is also speculation that Healthcare may be different(Why Healthcare Is Different | The Health Care Blogthehealthcareblog.com) – A very insightful analysis that gives five reasons why healthcare may be different( The health care field will not adopt a Silicon Valley mentality, Regulations can’t force change, The insurance companies are not the locus of cost and treatment problems, Doctors don’t want to be care managers, Patients don’t want to be care managers). Meanwhile we continue to get reports that ‘healthcare could adopt social media faster’ – (Canadian Healthcare Slow on Social Media Adoption « Susan L. Greigsusanlgreig.wordpress.com)

Telecoms and Mobile

The world of Telecoms and Mobile continues to change, transform us and also be transformed. Here are some interesting areas:

Apple has reportedly offered its design for itsy bitsy SIM cards — known officially as nano-SIM — to other mobile device makers that are part of the ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) without asking them to pay for it. There’s probably more to it than a sudden spirit of generosity. Apple loves to control the entire experience of its products, and when it comes to the iPhone and now iPad, the biggest uncontrollable element is a customer’s wireless carrier. And having a say in the SIM card, in theory, pushes Apple closer to the long-term goal of controlling every aspect of its mobile devices. (Why does Apple care so much about SIM cards anyway? — Apple News, Tips and Reviewsgigaom.com )

In Japan – Japan Smartphone Shipments to Rise by 55%thenextweb.com But all platforms continue to grow – After 16 Months, Windows Phone Has 70k Apps. How Long Did it Take iOS and Android? | The inneractive Blogblog.inner-active.com.  And Best Buy Is Selling Nearly as Many iPhones as Apple Itself – John Paczkowski – News – AllThingsDallthingsd.com

Networks continue to evolve – with some conflict (LightSquared hits FCC right where it hurts • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk)  And some speculation (56 London Overground Train Stations to get Free Wifithenextweb.com) and we continue to invest in innovation(Microsoft and Nokia Invest $24 Million in Finnish AppCampus Programthenextweb.com)

The on-going debate around ‘web vs. mobile’ continues with the Pew centre joining in (The Future of Apps and Web | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projectpewinternet.org)  and another bit of research from the Pew foundation investigates – What do teens do with their phones? | Pew Internet & American Life Projectwww.pewinternet.org

At a regulatory level – EU mobile biz barons agree to slash roaming charges • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk.  Again with Mobile Operators – Mobile operators mourn death of embedded 4G • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk. Contrary to expectations, about 90 per cent of tablets sold in the US towards the end of 2011 were Wi-Fi only. In addition, all major smartphone platforms now support tethering – the ability to share the phone’s mobile broadband connection – normally with up to five devices. Tethering effectively turns the handset into a Wi-Fi hotspot, using the 3G/4G connection as backhaul. The article in the Register argues that – “there’s something fundamentally wrong with operators charging for something I’m already paying for. If I’m on a mobile plan with a 1GB limit, I should be able to use that data allowance for whatever I want. “

Meanwhile, in the developing world, mobile phones continue to change lives – World News: How the developing world is using cellphone technology to change lives – thestar.comwww.thestar.com. An excellent article which lists the impact of FrontlineSMS, Ushahidi, Refugees United, NextDrop, MercyCorps, M-Pesa, Boom, iCow, CocoaLink, mFarm, NAFIS, Senevote2012, Samadhan, uReport, TulaSalud, Childcount+, Txtalert

Evolution of news

The evolution of news, a topic of recent EIF events, is also in the news itself

Google offers a new alternative for news monetization (A paywall alternative? Google launches revenue-generating surveys | Media news | Journalism.co.ukwww.journalism.co.uk) and Alan Rusbridger: What are you prepared to give back in return for journalism: money, time or data? – :: Future of Journalismwww.nextlevelofnews.com

NYT gains some success in the digital subscriptions battle and decides to restrict free content (

NYT: We Have 454,000 Digital Subs So Let’s Turn Down The Meter | paidContentpaidcontent.org)

Meanwhile, the Top 100 Apps in the iPad’s Newsstand Bring in $70,000 a Day Combined – Technology – The Atlantic Wirewww.theatlanticwire.com – contrast that with the fact that in 2011 the New York times raked in $705 million annually, or $1.9 million a day, in circulation, both in print and digitally, and $756 million in advertising, or $2.1 million a day.

News organizations face some of their own transparency battles (News Organizations That Lobby Against Their Own Reporters’ Interests : CJRwww.cjr.org)

Amid speculation of monetization of news (Mobile and the news media’s imploding business model | Michael Wolff | Comment is free | guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.uk), we also see innovation.

1)      Gannett Buys 1,000 iPhones For Journalists | ITProPortal.comwww.itproportal.com

2)      Layoffs At CNN As Network Transitions To Acquisition Model For Documentary Programming – TVNewserwww.mediabistro.com

3)      Will Hachette Be The First Big-6 Publisher To Drop DRM On E-Books? | paidContentpaidcontent.org

4)      10 More News Organizations To Follow On Pinterest – 10,000 Wordswww.mediabistro.com

Evolution of media

Post SOPA, media also continues to evolve

1)      White House calls for new law targeting ‘offshore’ Web sites | Privacy Inc. – CNET Newsnews.cnet.com

2)      White House’s New Report On Intellectual Property Enforcement Should Get A Copyright As A Creative Work Of Fiction | Techdirtwww.techdirt.com

3)      Google+ Gets its First UK TV Ad Campaignthenextweb.com

4)      Ireland’s Largest ISP Wants Country-Wide Three-Strikes Piracy Response | paidContentpaidcontent.org

5)      How social media users multitask while watching TVwww.lostremote.com

Innovation

And finally, in the innovation section here are some trends to watch:

1)      Twine, The Gadget That Senses Your Environment And Tweets You, Is Coming In May | Singularity Hubsingularityhub.com

2)      Knowledge is a property of the network: Mapping Britannica’s world in a Wikipedia age » Nieman Journalism Labwww.niemanlab.org “The problem, however, isn’t that we’ve grown complacent about the nature of knowledge, but that the nature of knowledge is changing in the context of networks. The vision of knowledge as paradigmatic, structured, ordered, like the hierarchy of the church and the deputations of sovereignty, was very much a product of encyclopedism’s golden age, the eighteenth century. “

3)      $35 Raspberry Pi Linux PC delayed once againwww.bgr.com

4)      Wikipedia’s Next Big Thing: Wikidata, A Machine-Readable, User-Editable Database Funded By Google, Paul Allen And Others | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com

5)      India and United States jointly develop Open Government Platform — Federal Computer Weekfcw.com

6)      That latest student craze sweeping China: Supercomputing wars • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk

7)      Chinese gov wants global e-commerce crown • The Registerwww.theregister.co.uk

Hope you enjoyed this episode!

This month has been significant for the policy bloggers network .  We launched the next version of our site with a slew of new features – leading to the idea of developing the community. I will expand more on this in the next newsletter as we launch the specifics of the community

So, what’s happening in the policy world?

Where are the conversations and ‘under the radar’ conversations?

I remember watching CNN’s coverage of the 1991 Gulf war. It was a time which defined a medium.

This month, we saw such ‘moments of arrival’ for eight technologies. Here they are:

1)  Pinterest – If you have never heard of it, you will soon. Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Women’s Magazines  overtaking both Yahoo and Facebook

2) Twitter – In The Final 3 Minutes Of The Super Bowl, There Were 10,000 Tweets Per Second

3) Superball and video content streaming – First streaming of Super Bowl a success, but left a lot to be desired 

4) 3D printing – Transplant jaw made by 3D printer claimed as first

5) Green data centers – Wind-powered Texas data center moves closer to reality 

6) Online and Offline services – Amazon in the Process of Launching a Retail Store

7) A big day for the Mobile Web -Mozilla in Mobile – the Web is the Platform  Telefónica’s support for the creation of open Web devices based on Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko project.  Telefonica will build devices based on the Web and HTML5 stack and Web APIs for mobile devices.

8 ) Square: Merchants Accepting Square’s Card Case Doubles In Four Months To 40,000

It was also a big week for privacy

Google’s new privacy rules, which have come into force as of Thursday 1 March, are to be investigated by EU data authorities, with France arguing the sweeping changes breach European law. FTC Chairman says -  Google Offers ‘Brutal Choice’ on Privacy Policies

Twitter sells its archive to marketers

Over 3 years later, “deleted” Facebook photos are still online

And Opt-Out Provision Would Halt Some, but Not All Privacy advocates complain that the mechanism does not go nearly far enough in part because it affects only certain marketers. Many publishers and search engines, like Google, Amazon or The New York Times, are considered “first-party sites,” which means that the consumer goes to these Web pages directly. First-party sites can still collect data on visitors and serve them ads based on what is collected.  (i.e. opt-out applies to third party sites only)

Gov 2.0 and Open government

Updating a story we have been following – Google, Facebook Censor Themselves in India After Court Order.  Globally though, the Internet is making a deep impact.  Internet protests could be equalizer . In the EU, there is a call for a single open data licence: we want a single #opendata license   And in New York, since 2010, New York City has strived to become a global digital leader. How New York City Went Digital in 2011 is a great overview of what NY city is doing. And Open data journalism becomes significant – The expanding world of open data journalism

Debate

From time to time, the Internet explodes on some noisy debates mainly driven by the few ‘large’ Silicon valley bloggers and tweeters.  One such is the debate around the ‘Open Web’. Once again, it is being discussed by Robert Scoble but Esther Dyson offers a more rational perspective – Is the Open Web Doomed?  – duelling blog posts of John Battelle, Robert Scoble and Dave Winer in the past few days. But things are a bit more complicated. But whether the Web is dead or open or shut is not a question that will be settled once and for all, but rather a situation that will fluctuate in cycles (even if the Web takes on some other name).

A more intriguing debate is around the influence of the big silicon valley bloggers and their conflict of position when they stray into PR and / or venture capital  - A blogger or a journalist? Debate over the power and influence of tech writers

Print media and its evolution

Much is happening with print media and journalism  including

Print media enters live video business for web viewers

One year ago Rupert Murdoch introduced The Daily, designed to “redefine the news.” How has it fared?   With 100,000 subscribers paying 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year, and 250,000 unique readers each month, The Daily is on target to break even in five years, just short of the time it typically takes a new print magazine to see a profit, said its publisher, Greg Clayman.  However – In part, The Daily has been limited by the structure of the app itself, which renders beautiful pages of text, photos and graphics but lacks the fluidity of the networked Web or the immediacy of blogs and Twitter. Editors might update the app once or twice a day, depending on news events. Critics immediately grumbled that The Daily seemed oddly static. AND A significant number of subscribers live in Florida, Texas, Michigan, Nashville and Denver. Mr. Angelo said The Daily has always aimed at these readers, rather than catering to the chattering classes in New York and Los Angeles.

And finally, the Innovation section -

learning from Kenya. Mobile money & co-working   – Since Africa is trying to solve problems that we in the Western world do not have, it’s tempting to say that innovation there isn’t really relevant to us. But upon visiting Africa, one realizes that to ignore its recent innovations is a big mistake.

When Will The Post-PC Era Arrive? It Just Did. – There has been much debate about what the post-PC era is, when it will arrive, or whether it’s already here. But key pieces of new data, emerging last week, are making the case that we crossed the imaginary line from the “PC” era to the “post-PC” era at the end of 2011. According to analysts at Canalys, two major computing milestones were achieved at the end of this year: smartphone shipments outpaced PCs for the first time ever, and Apple became the world’s largest PC maker, if you count iPads as PCs (as well you should). Combined, what these numbers tell us is that the post-PC era is happening now. Right now. And maybe we need to think about how we define “PC.”

Nokia dominates global Internet usage in mobile devices, but Apple is king in the US

The Future of Networking via @bhorowitz  The Rise of Cloud Computing  + The Rise of Server Virtualization  = Completely virtualized network making the network every bit as flexible as a virtualized server + Decoupled networking software from proprietary hardware, so that any company could add any kind of functionality to the network – not just the major networking companies + infinitely scalable using commodity hardware

Optical Memory Could Ease Internet Bottlenecks: Scientific American

And a great piece – Silicon Valley’s assault on Mobile’s Gated Kingdom – Barbarians at the IP gateway

 Finally, here are some articles from the Policy bloggers network in February -

Horizon 2020 event: Models for innovation? The culture at DARPA/ IDF Unit 8200?

Is it time for Crowdfunding and P2P banking?

Content monetization – the post SOPA perspectives – One size does not fit all ..

Paper review – Open Wireless vs. Licensed Spectrum: Evidence from Market Adoption Yochai Benkler

Book review: ‘The Future of Content’ by Gerd Leonard

Privacy – Hindsight makes us wiser: Will we now think of privacy from first principles?

Public Procurement of ICT: Debunking Myths around Open Source Software and Royalty Bearing Standards

EIF Dinner Debate: Open Data

Public Procurement Policy: The Second Look for cloud computing and open source software

Kind rgds

Ajit

The last EIFonline event in the European Parliament Brussels was about the Horizon 2020 program.

You can find all the Horizon 2020 event speeches and talks at the EIF online site. The Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe’s global competitiveness. Running from 2014 to 2020 with an €80 billion budget, the EU’s new programme for research and innovation is part of the drive to create new growth and jobs in Europe.

This blog is an attempt to continue the conversation beyond the event.

At this event, I asked the question: Why does not the EU follow innovation models which have succeeded globally? Specifically I mentioned DARPA but also the IDF (Israel Defence Forces ) could be another.

Ofcourse both of these are defence based but I am advocating more the methodology of operations (i.e. the culture) than the domain and questioning if the EU can learn from their approach.

At the meeting, there was discussion of ‘speculative/trust based’ innovation and the risk of failure that such approaches lead to and that the ‘Bloody accountants’ as to why such models may not work in the EU

But nevertheless, I wanted to elaborate what I mean ..

And I explore the two models in some more detail.

Let us first consider DARPA with its success of the Internet, GPS, Onion routing and many others.

Here are the key characteristics at DARPA (i.e. how DARPA operates). Worth reading.

• Small and flexible: DARPA has only about 140 technical professionals; DARPA presents itself as “100 geniuses connected by a travel agent.”^[10]
• Flat organization: DARPA avoids hierarchy, essentially operating at only two management levels to ensure the free and rapid flow of information and ideas, and rapid decision-making.
• Autonomy and freedom from bureaucratic impediments: DARPA has an exemption from Title V civilian personnel specifications, which provides for a direct authority to hire talents with the expediency not allowed by the standard civil service process.
• Eclectic, world-class technical staff and performers: DARPA seeks great talents and ideas from industry, universities, government laboratories, and individuals, mixing disciplines and theoretical and experimental strength. DARPA neither owns nor operates any laboratories or facilities, and the overwhelming majority of the research it sponsors is done in industry and universities. Very little of DARPA’s research is performed at government labs.
• Teams and networks: At its very best, DARPA creates and sustains great teams of researchers from different disciplines that collaborate and share in the teams’ advances.
• Hiring continuity and change: DARPA’s technical staff is hired or assigned for four to six years. All key staff i.e. Office Directors and Program Managers are rotated to ensure constant infusion of fresh thinking and perspectives.
• Project-based assignments organized around a challenge model: DARPA organizes a significant part of its portfolio around specific technology challenges. It foresees new innovation-based capabilities and then works back to the fundamental breakthroughs required to make them possible. Although individual projects typically last three to five years, major technological challenges may be addressed over longer time periods, ensuring patient investment on a series of focused steps and keeping teams together for on-going collaboration.
• Outsourced support personnel: DARPA extensively leverages technical, contracting, and administrative services from other DoD agencies and branches of the military. This provides DARPA the flexibility to get into and out of an area without the burden of sustaining staff, while building cooperative alliances with its “agents.” These outside agents help create a constituency in their respective organizations for adopting the technology.
• Outstanding program managers: The best DARPA program managers have always been freewheeling zealots in pursuit of their goals. The Director’s most important task is to recruit and hire very creative people with big ideas, and empower them.
• Acceptance of failure: DARPA pursues breakthrough opportunities and is very tolerant of technical failure if the payoff from success will be great enough.
• Orientation to revolutionary breakthroughs in a connected approach: DARPA historically has focused not on incremental but radical innovation. It emphasizes high-risk investment, moves from fundamental technological advances to prototyping, and then hands off the system development and production to the military services or the commercial sector.
• Mix of connected collaborators: DARPA typically builds strong teams and networks of collaborators, bringing in a range of technical expertise and applicable disciplines, and involving university researchers and technology firms that are often not significant defense contractors or beltway consultants.

The other model is the IDF (note I did not mention IDF in the discussion at the event but I want to add it here).

Anyone who comes from a Telecoms/mobile background has a high opinion of Israeli companies. I always look forward with interest to the invitations of the Israel Mobile & Communication Association at MWC. There is a specific relationship between innovation and technology and the ecosystem which fosters that innovation.  For instance, many of the high tech success stories that companies originate from the elite  IDF Unit 8200.

Yossi Vardi, the grandfather of many Israel based start-ups (and who I know from my World Economic Forum days) points out: “More high-tech billionaires were created from 8200 than from any business school in the country.”

Alumni of 8200 have gone on to found leading Israeli high-tech companies, among them Check Point, ICQ, NICE, AudioCodes, Gilat, and EZchip.

Like DARPA, there are some common characteristics common to Israeli innovation  as well

-          They are a mix of hardware and software to suit a specific need. This kind of innovation is both marketable and also defensible. (the combination of SW and HW is much harder to replicate)

-          Much of the innovation originates around security and in that, Unit 8200 is similar to USA’s  National Security Agency or GCHQ in Britain, for some reason Unit 8200 has a high proportion of start-ups which have become commercialised.

According to Forbes,  what sets the unit apart from its Sigint counterparts in the US and Europe is that it does almost all its research and development in-house. This means that, aside from interpreters and analysts, the unit is home to a huge cadre of engineers, technicians and programmers. AND  Indeed, the unit’s internal procedures and organisational culture read almost like a playbook for the start-up economy. “We are very tolerant of mistakes . . . It is impossible to be creative when fear leads you,”

The whole organization works like a set of start-ups  and the culture (for instance tolerance of failure) is a major factor for success.

There is perhaps a lot to learn for us here in Europe from the culture of both DARPA and IDF Unit 8200

See details of the EIF event at the Horizon 2020 event speeches and talks at the EIF online site

To be concrete? You could create attention for Crowdfunding and P2P banking in your marketing strategies, on your websites and in your customer contacts. If you don´t want to give a loan, tell your customer about the alternative possibilities. Act, with or without a commission, as a matchmaker for the P2P world. Connect your wealth and your professional reputation to estimate financial risks with crowdfunding. Create and implement  Schumpeters ‘Neue Kombinationen’.

Actually you would do exactly the same as we’ve seen in Belgium in November 2011: make a direct link between the citizen and the state. That could also happen between citizen and citizen or between citizen and company. And it would be possible in the financial world. And you are the ones who can accelerate and facilitate this! You could start building the metaphorical extra asphalt and roads directly and open them up in this wealthy country where the money is currently flowing at slightly too slow a pace. You would be doing us a great service and it would give the Netherlands as an innovative e-country an enormous impulse.  Who’s first?

So, the question is: Are we going to see crowdfunding become more mainstream? 

There seems to be some policy movement in this direction. Congressman McHenry explains how his “crowdfunding bill” provides startups and small businesses with much-needed capital by finally allowing “ordinary” Americans to enter a market long dominated by “accredited” (read: already rich) investors.  You can listen to the podcast by clicking the “play” button below or through this direct link (right click to save).

SOPA has come and gone. Irrespective of your perspective, many of the underlying questions still remain. This blog (and forthcoming Policy bloggers network  breakfast event) will be an attempt to address the missing perspectives on SOPA and attempt to create a rational discussion around the future of content monetization.

Here are some ideas from a content perspective.  The perspective is intentional since the idea is to move away from a dichotomy (ex all content is same, all offending sites should be blocked etc) and to move to a constructive, fact based debate.

Comments welcome on these:

-          The Content galaxy is not ‘One size fits all’:  Content types are very varied. Regulation and discussion traditionally lumps all content types together (often under threat of piracy which affects all content types) – but these content types often have different characteristics.  The cost of the production of the Titanic ($200m) cannot be recouped by advertising alone

-          The fact that all content can be digitized and distributed over networks doesn’t mean that one size-fit-all wholesale commercial and legal solutions can efficiently apply to all these very diverse industries: For example – you could give a digital version of a book for free but producing a movie like the Titanic or other most expensive films made cannot really be compared to books not just in production costs but also the ‘follow on model’ . One could argue that the digital version of the book is free but other versions could recoup costs (ex print versions). However, that argument does not apply to a high budget film i.e. once the film is ‘consumed’ there is no incentive to buy in another format. Such an approach is destined to commercial failure. It risks destroying more value than it creates and will eventually impoverish the consumers’ experience.

-          Free flow of content is a worthy objective but not feasible for all content types: Free flow of content is a worthy objective but it is not feasible in all cases due to factors other than copyright. For example, different rules on censorship by rating agencies, that restrict content to specific age groups, are based on local standards of what is acceptable and what isn’t.

-          Business models - There may be limitations and drawbacks but the market for content remain competitive ie there are no dominant players.  Professionalism is expensive. High quality content requires excellence and professionalism both in its making and in its marketing. Advertiing based business models are still not a replacement for professionally produced content especially if you consider all content types are not equal.

The problem with legislation like SOPA is – it attempts to be ‘one size fits all’ for both sides (Internet and content).

Here is why .. Nicholas Johnson of Street bank posted the below in a forum
The main issue with SOPA is that it shifts the entire burden of responsibility onto the distributor. I run a community website called Streetbank which puts neighbours in touch with each other. Under SOPA, if a neighbour shares a link to an illegal download with another neighbour on my site, I am responsible. To comply with this law I would need to employ someone to check every single post. It’s analogous to forcing a cafe owner to post a guard next to each table to ensure the diners don’t talk about anything naughty. The cost of this is too high. It would prevent us from doing business in America. The tech sector is expanding and creating jobs. SOPA will put a huge break on this, not just in the USA but worldwide.

See the video of steet bank below

I hope that the above will be a foundation for discussion

Thus, a rational discussion on content will benefit the ecosystem.