On 17 May, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) hosted the inaugural section meeting, “Education in the Digital Transformation”. In this section of the BMBF Digital Summit Platform “Learning Systems | Digital Competences”, in which eco is also represented, projects and initiatives are to be developed that advance digitalisation.

Christian Schmitz, Director OpenSource at the German cloud provider plusserver, explains which factors can influence data sovereignty in an eco interview. He also talks about the potential of open source solutions and Gaia-X.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has issued invitations to the ICANN77 Policy Forum in Washington, D.C. Once again, eco will be there on site. At this event, Oliver Süme (eco Chair of the Board), Thomas Rickert (eco Director Names & Numbers) and Lars Steffen (eco Director International) will represent the interests of eco member companies. Interested parties can attend either online or on-site.

For the first time since 1999 in Berlin, a meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will take place in Germany with ICANN78 from 21 to 26 October 2023 in Hamburg. In the run-up, eco is organising a series of events on the DNS (Domain Name System). On 21 April, the geoTLD.group and the eco Association...

The intention of the 2017 German Online Access Act (OZG) was to lay the foundations for digitalised public administration. However, there was an acknowledgement in late 2022 of a clear failure in achieving the act’s goal. Today, the successor regulation for the Online Access Act is now to be adopted in the Federal Cabinet.

Tomorrow, Thursday, the German Bundestag will discuss the Energy Efficiency Act in its first reading. The Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, founded under the umbrella of the eco Association, considers the current version of the draft approved by the Federal Cabinet in April to be detrimental to Germany as a digital location.

Compliance with legal protection targets in IT poses new challenges for many companies, according to Mathias Handsche. In an eco member interview, he explains how nGENn GmbH helps to boost cybersecurity.

The German Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ) currently intends to draft a “law on the protection of digital violence”, which is intended to strengthen private law enforcement. In preparation for this draft law, the BMJ drew up a key points paper on 12 April. The Association of the Internet Industry has now produced a position paper on these key points.

On 15 May, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the eco Association, invited participants to two events in Berlin: An exclusive “Roundtable Luncheon for Business” at the Adlon hotel was followed by a reception plus panel discussion on regulation issues in the evening.

Sharing and securely storing data is a must in the mobility industry – this was the consensus of the participants and speakers at the webinar jointly organised by the eco Association’s Mobility CG and Car Repair 4.0.

Five years after the General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) came into force on 25 May, most consumers in Germany are making a conscious decision to protect their personal data on the Internet. This is shown by a representative Civey survey commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry.

Recent innovations and developments in AI have intensified the debate around data protection. Prof. Dr Anne Riechert, Board Member of the AI Frankfurt Rhein-Main Society gives a first insight into the topic and presents the activities of the AI Frankfurt Rhein-Main Society.

According to a representative Civey survey commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry, many Germans say that the Internet industry is making a major contribution to better shaping our future.

Critical infrastructures are of considerable importance for many spheres of our societal life. Since the beginning of the year, the protection of critical infrastructures has been newly regulated by the NIS2 Directive and the CER Directive, meaning that the regulatory field for critical infrastructures is also growing. This prompted eco to set up the KRITIS Competence Group at a constituent meeting last Tuesday.

The EU Commission’s proposal for a regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse has sparked much discussion and severe criticism since its publication in May 2022.

It is  important that the AI Act clearly addresses potential risks, but in order to harness the opportunities of the technology, we need room for innovation. Today, Europe is already lagging behind in the development of AI systems. This threatens not only Europe’s technological sovereignty, but also the competitiveness of the entire economy in Germany.

At our Mobility Competence Group meeting,“Urban Mobility – Interaction of IoT and Mobility for the Implementation of Mobility Solutions”, eco entered into discussion with various experts from the mobility and IoT environment on the topics of data generation, data usage, data management and data policy. Together with our host, WOBCOM in Wolfsburg, and our CG Mobility Leader Giovanni Coppa, we arrived at exciting content and a highly productive CG meeting.

Many companies underestimate the threat posed by cyber attacks, even though experts believe that the threat is growing – this was the result of the eco IT Security Survey 2023. eco IT Security Survey 2023. As a result, cybersecurity should be a top priority in all companies.

The Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany calls for data centres to be included in the current discussion on the introduction of industry electricity prices. The German federal government should recognise the importance of the industry as the backbone of digitalisation and part of the solution in achieving climate goals.

The importance of IT security has never been higher, says SySS founder and Managing Director Sebastian Schreiber. In an eco member interview, he talks about how companies can protect themselves from dangerous ransomware attacks.

When selecting cloud services for corporate IT, experts are particularly concerned about the trusted handling of data. This is shown by a Civey survey of 250 IT experts commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry. According to the survey, the most important criterion when selecting cloud services in corporate IT is an encryption offer from the cloud provider (41.5 per cent). What are also seen to be very important are quality and security certificates (36.6 per cent) and the compatibility of the service with the GDPR.

The ICANN76 Community Forum was recently hosted in the coast resort of Cancún, Mexico, and took place from 11 to 16 March 2023. Which topics were under discussion and what insights emerged? This was covered at the subsequent virtual ICANN76 Readout on 28 March, hosted by eco – Association of the Internet Industry and ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

The eco Competence Group Networks is offering an exchange on laser safety on 5 May from 11.00-12.30, where laser expert, Dr Eric ten Have, Development Associate at Corning Optical Communications, will share his expertise.

Decision-makers from politics and the Internet industry met at this year's Internet Policy Forum on 25 April in the Microsoft Atrium Berlin to discuss the lever projects, fields of action and flagships of the Digital Strategy.

The career opportunities in the tech industry are diverse and we can finally say goodbye to the “clichéd nerd” image. Nonetheless, women are still underrepresented in IT. How do we inspire young talents for the diverse career opportunities in tech? On the occasion of Girls’ Day, we spoke to Kiki Radicke, Head of People & Culture at Adacor, about working and career opportunities in the tech industry, and how IT companies can succeed in inspiring more girls and women to enter tech.

The digitalisation of the workplace – for example through mobile working options – can contribute to improving the work-life balance. This is the view of around two out of three Germans (61.2 per cent), according to a representative Civey survey commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry on the occasion of Labour Day on 1 May.

On 8 and 9 May, registries, registrars, resellers as well as service providers and investors from the domains industry will again meet in Stockholm for the Nordic Domain Days 2023. The eco initiative topDNS is once again a partner of the conference and will be involved in the programme on the second day with the focus topic “Policy & Tech”:

From 17 to 21 April 2023, around 130,000 visitors in Hannover could see first-hand just how well Gaia-X has taken off. During the trade fair, a large number of interested visitors came to the joint “Industry 4.0 platform” stand to learn how the Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS) and many other Gaia-X projects work in practice.

The Names & Numbers Forum of the eco Association brings together more than 140 companies from the global domain industry. The Steering Committee of the eco Competence Group is now pleased to welcome three new members.

InterNetX and Sedo.com present the Global Domain Report 2023, their annual assessment of the state of the domain industry. The domain industry is constantly evolving, keeping up with trends in our society and changing market conditions. The report shows how the business of domain registrations and aftermarket sales remains...