Opencast lignite mining for power generation shaped the Rhenish region in the west of Germany for many decades. With the energy transition, the region is facing an economic structural change. But how can the former coal-mining region be transformed into an “Innovation Valley Rhineland”? Around 70 experts from the digital industry discussed this in Bedburg in October.

The eco topDNS Initiative has published an Abuse Table to provide guidance on which cyber threats are considered to abuse the Domain Name System – and which do not.

The year 2023 will be decisive in determining whether the EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen can implement its digital policy goals before the next European elections. The related Work Programme is thus the last opportunity to get the digital decade underway in this legislative term.

This GXFS online survey (only in German), launched today, is designed to draw a picture of the current state of knowledge and expectations of Gaia-X in the market. Both factors are crucial for the acceptance of the initiative by different stakeholders and therefore also essential for the success of Gaia-X as a community...

In early October 2022, US President Biden signed the Executive Order for the planned US-EU Data Privacy Framework. Dr Jens Eckhardt, specialist attorney for IT law at Derra, Meyer & Partner in Dusseldorf and Board member of EuroCloud Deutschland, answers three questions on what this means for future data transfers to the US. 

eco Association invites you to attend it-sa in Nuremberg from 25 to 27 October. At this event, the Ransomware Initiative of eco and its partners will be presented, while eco members and guests will discuss “Secure Software (Development)” on 26 October at the trade fair.

How can the digital transformation of the industry succeed and what contribution can service providers make in overcoming the many challenges? Jörn Petereit, COO at Cloudflight, talks about this in an interview:

eco, bitkom and the German Datacenter Association (GDA) have published a joint position paper for a sustainable German data centre industry by 2030. In the course of an impending energy crisis, the three associations call for data centres to be recognised as system-relevant IT infrastructures, regardless of their size, and to be prioritised accordingly in the event of supply shortages.

eco Association has been surveying Germany’s IT security experts for over ten years. Along with the important IT security topics and most serious threats, these surveys also assess how resilient German companies are against cyber attacks. The IT Security Survey 2023 has now been launched.  

Six months after announcing a new transatlantic agreement for the legally secure transfer of personal data, U.S. President Joseph Biden today presented the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework. eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme explains: "We very much welcome that a solution for the legally secure transfer of personal...

Head of the eco Complaints Office, Alexandra Koch- Skiba comments on the presentation of the draft Regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse in the lead Committee on Civil Liberties of the EU Commissioner.

IT security for an intensified threat situation: With around 500 participants over two days, the 12th Internet Security Days (ISDs) at Phantasialand Brühl were a huge success.

eco – Association of the Internet Industry & ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers invite you to a joint ICANN75 Readout to summarise and discuss selected topics from the Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Speakers from different constituencies of the ICANN community will provide an overview...

Lucia Falkenberg, eco CPO and spokesperson of the New Work Competence Group, on the landmark ruling of the German Federal Labour Court on the recording of working hours.

Sustainable digitalisation connects people and societies and leads to rapid social and technological innovation, say Murugaiah Gobinath & Dr. Somakanthan Somalingam of AlphaEdge in an eco interview.

Six months after the announcement of a new transatlantic agreement for the legally secure transfer of personal data, the successor to the EU-US Privacy Shield may finally be coming: The agreement on the Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework is to be presented by US President Joseph Biden early next week.

The ECJ ruling on the German data retention regulations has triggered new discussions on the disputed proceedings. At today’s meeting of the Interior and Justice Ministers of the federal states, data retention will also be on the agenda.

The campaign places the focus on technology-based solution approaches such as green IT or green coding, IoT and 5G-based Smart Farming solutions or connected mobility, and brings home the importance of the digital transformation for a more sustainable future.

eco has just launched a campaign website under the motto of “JOINTHESOLUTION: We are part of the solution – the Internet industry”. The campaign focuses on digital technologies and services that provide solutions to burning societal issues.

During the war in Ukraine, the cyber threat situation has intensified. According to the BSI, ransomware is becoming the biggest IT security threat. Sophos, Microsoft and Rhode & Schwarz have joined forces to form the Ransomware Initiative under the umbrella of eco and recommend 10 technical and organisational precautions.

The European Court of Justice today ruled that the German regulations on blanket data retention are not compatible with EU law. The eco Association welcomes this judgement and calls for an urgent repeal of the current regulations.

The European Commission has presented the proposal for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) regulation. Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, believes it is understandable that the EU wants to make digital systems even more secure and resilient in the future. However, he does not see an automatic improvement in security in the planned rules.

Employees are the most important link in the security chain in the fight against cybercrime, says Marcus Beyer from Swisscom. He presents the contents of his talk at the Internet Security Days (ISD) presentation in a short interview. The eco Association invites you to attend this IT security conference on 29-30 September 2022 at Phantasialand Brühl, Germany.

“For a sustainable mobility transition, a mobility ecosystem is needed that enables the sovereign and secure exchange of data among all actors involved, emphasises Oliver Süme, Chair of the Board of the eco Association.

Orchestrating value networks to realise new business models and produce more sustainably is exactly what the Gaia-X-Federation Services project (GXFS) is realising as the nucleus of software for Gaia-X. Klaus Ottradovetz from Atos, Ernst Stöckl-Pukall from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, and Harald A. Summa from the eco Association discussed why Europe needs Gaia-X at the GXFS Connect in Berlin.

In the legal dispute between SpaceNet AG and the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide on 20 September whether the German regulations on data retention are compatible with EU law. eco has supported the lawsuit of SpaceNet AG from the beginning. According to the Association’s assessment, the general and unconditional storage of traffic data, with around 2.35 billion data records per day (IP addresses and telephony), affects almost all German users and costs the industry more than 600 million Euros.

On the occasion of the State of the European Union speech by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, expected on Wednesday, 14 September, eco Chair Oliver Süme said: "We live in challenging times. The threat of climate change and the current energy crisis as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine show us that we must strive harder than ever for a more resource- and energy-efficient way of living and doing business. At the same time, digital resilience and technological sovereignty are becoming more important than ever."

Cybercriminals are increasingly well organised, and the risk and consequences of a cybersecurity incident are underestimated by many, explains Chris Lichtenthäler, Senior Manager at auditing firm Deloitte, in an interview: You talk about “Crime as a Service” - how well organised are cybercriminals? That depends...

An Interview with Christoph van Lück, Chair of the Board at ECHO

An interview with Henning von Kielpinski, Cloud Onboarding Lead EMEA/JAPAC at Google Germany