The new German Telecommunications & Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDSG) has now been adopted by the Federal Cabinet. In the international field, a proposal for the ePrivacy Regulation made under the Portuguese EU Council Presidency was presented to the EU’s deputy ambassadors on the same day. The eco Association calls for an approach which guarantees coherence and harmonisation between the TTDSG and the planned ePrivacy Regulation

In future, the German federal government wants to take tougher action against operators of criminal trading platforms on the Internet. To this end, the cabinet will discuss a corresponding draft of the Federal Ministry of Justice, which is to amend the German Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure accordingly.

“The new regulations on ancillary copyright for press publishers included in the latest draft law, in combination with the planned upload filters, will lead to a deep incision into freedom of expression and stunt the development of new and innovative platforms throughout the whole of Europe,” says eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme.

Odix CEO & former commander of the IDF cyber defense unit, Dr. Oren Eytan will provide an overview of emerging cyber threats. Cyber-attacks become a major threat for every company regardless if it is small, medium or a large enterprise.

Leadinfo B. V. is a provider of lead generation software that identifies a company's B2B visitors on their own websites. The company, headquartered in Capelle aan den IJssel (Netherlands), was founded in 2017. In the short interview, Hagen Kiesewetter, Partner Manager DACH, explains, among other things, the special challenges of the industry and his expectations of eco.

Commenting on the German federal government’s Data Strategy presented today, eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme says: “Standardised and legally secure handling of data is essential for all data-based business models, which is why the strategy now presented is long overdue and essentially a positive step forward for the companies concerned.”

eco – Association of the Internet Industry has taken on the specification of the GAIA-X Federation Services and has set up a Project Management Office (PMO) and defined five work packages. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) is funding the project with around 13.5 million Euro.

Andreas Weiss, Head of Digital Business Models at the eco Association, explains in an interview why we need a trustworthy digital space that is consistently oriented towards European standards and values.

One year after the adoption of the EU Green Deal, leading cloud infrastructure providers and data centre operators in Europe have signed up to a joint Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact – with this including the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, founded under the umbrella of the eco Association.

Global leaders in the email industry came together in autumn 2020 for the CSA Digital Email Summit. Under the motto “Bridging the Gap – Reality vs. Expectations”, around 600 participants discussed the latest technologies and trends for sending commercial emails. Here is a summary of the Summit with links to the event reports.

In the planned amendment of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB), the eco Association still sees clear grounds for criticism. In its third round, the GWB amendment is expected to be passed by the Bundestag next Thursday.

A good portion of interested participants, cherry-picked speakers, and two pinches of networking – that's all you need for the perfect online event. The right software also determines its success. In 2020, we as the eco Association digitalised around 100 events with a wide variety of online tools. Christiane Skiba, eco Branch Manager in Cologne and Head of Marketing, takes stock and gives valuable tips for the coming year.

In light of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the German federal government plans to have the “repaired” version of the law on combating right-wing extremism and hate crime on the Internet confirmed by the Bundestag in an expedited procedure before the end of January. The eco Association views the events in Washington with the utmost gravity, but takes a critical stance on the expedited procedure for a law that has been deemed questionable under constitutional law.  

Andreas Weiss on Uptime Punks Podcast – offering an update on the GAIA-X project.

eco warns against unilaterally defining further requirements for social network operators at the national level until the interplay between the DSA and the German Network Enforcement Act has been conclusively regulated.

The year 2021 offers an opportunity for a strategic reorientation of German and European digital policy. Oliver Süme, Chair of the eco Association, calls for a more sustainable digital policy that sees digitalisation as part of the solution to many global challenges and uses existing innovation potential more consistently than before.

We should not sit back and relax. When eco, 25 years after its foundation, chose “Internet with responsibility” as our motto, we did not do so lightly. We are aware of the scope of our responsibility – and we believe in making a difference. We know that digital infrastructure is often critical infrastructure and that critical infrastructure is always a potential target for attack. If, in the middle of the pandemic, the IT systems of a major hospital were to be paralyzed by a (possibly even wrongly addressed) hacker attack, the damage will affect human lives.

Conclusions for sustainable digitalisation were adopted at last week’s meeting of the EU Environment Council. Among other things, these stipulate that data centres should become climate-neutral by 2030.

The Service-Meister Consortium announces it will unveil its 2020-developed platform architecture at the end of the year.  Service-Meister is developing innovations using AI to improve the service processes of SMEs.

With the drafts for an IT Security Act 2.0, the new Telecommunications Act, and the BND Act, all of which were hastily approved by the German Federal Cabinet yesterday, the German federal government is fundamentally undermining general IT security and damaging the trustworthiness of digital communication in Germany.

The plans of the EU Commission presented yesterday for the regulation of digital services and digital markets are, in the view of eco – Association of the Internet Industry, ambitious proposals that appropriately reflect the complexity of the topic and of the Digital Market.

The German Telecommunications Act is to be fundamentally reformed within this legislative term and an updated version of a joint draft act has just been published. eco denounces the overall chaotic legislative process which is occurring at the expense of content-related diligence and appropriate consultation with associations. In particular, eco criticises the fact that the amended act will create a new class of protection that will essentially place service providers under an increased level of risk.

The Association of the Internet Industry appeals to policy-makers to reset the timing for the deliberations on the German IT Security Act 2.0 and to await further developments at European level.

DE-CIX study provides scientific evidence for the first time: The Internet is capable of bearing the burden of Corona – results allow us to breathe a sigh of relief.

Behind all automated digital processes, skilled humans are working very hard to drive the industry forward. During this session, organized by Eco and DDA, we dive into the role of industry and schools to solve the data center shortage of personnel.

On 16 December, the German Federal Cabinet intends to vote on the draft law to implement the EU Copyright Directive. The eco Association continues to take a very critical stance on the draft law: from the association’s point of view, the planned regulations endanger Europe’s digital innovative power without leading to more fairness in the use of intellectual property on the Internet.

The motto of the German 2020 Digital Summit was “More Sustainability by Means of Digitalisation”. A large chunk of the agenda was taken up by the topic of GAIA-X. Harald A. Summa in interview on the initiative’s prospects and whether digital infrastructures can contribute to a more sustainable life and economy.

The German Chancellery has presented a draft of what is termed as the BND Act. According to the draft, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is to be given permission to hack providers abroad in order to obtain inventory, traffic and content data. eco – Association of the Internet Industry sharply criticises this initiative and has delivered a statement on the draft act.

AI offers many exciting opportunities in the field of Marketing, but its use in practice lags behind. According to the eco study Digital Marketing Trends 2020, 22 percent of companies want to improve their marketing with the help of AI in 2020.

With the update of the German federal government’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy from 2018, which was adopted by the Federal Cabinet today, the responsible ministries have set themselves goals not just for the coming years, but also in all probability for far beyond the current legislative term.