John Graham-Cumming, CTO of Cloudflare, offers insight into the changing traffic patterns and changing online behavior through the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. Read more on dotmagazine.

eco Legal Counsel Clarissa Benner takes stock of two years of the GDPR and explains why companies are still grappling with its implementation. Read more on dotmagazine.

Responding to the impact of the Corona pandemic and the deteriorating global economic situation, the German coalition agreed on Wednesday evening to a historically-significant economic recovery package to the tune of 130 billion Euro for this and next year. The eco Association welcomes the fact that a share of the budget will also be used to promote digital technologies.

On 4 June 2020, Peter Altmaier, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, and Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economics and Finance, discussed the GAIA-X venture. Andreas Weiss, Director of EuroCloud Germany, participated in the subsequent Virtual Expert Forum.

In a time of crisis, a global lockdown needs a digital unlocking, explains Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International. Read more on dotmagazine.

Europe is aiming to become a forerunner in both trustworthy artificial intelligence and the data economy. Correspondingly, the EU Commission presented strategies and launched consultations, the latter which ended on 31 May 2020. The eco Association took this opportunity to comment on these strategies.

In this issue, dotmagazine explores the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on behavior and IT and infrastructure questions, and dives deeper into the future-oriented topic of how to bring women into the tech industry.

Working groups, meetings, round tables, workshops: Many events that can no longer take place in the real world due to the COVID-19 pandemic are being recreated online. For online collaboration to be as productive as live on site, it takes more than video telephony and chat functions. The eco expert for online work and managing director of aixvox GmbH Detlev Artelt explains the secret of successful online events.

For the Association of the Internet Industry, the responsibilities and liability for IT security must be regulated in a balanced manner within the framework of the IT-SiG 2.0 and security gaps must be closed quickly: State back-doors and the targeted weakening of encryption are counterproductive for IT security and jeopardise confidence in the use of digital services.

The Association of the Internet Industry welcomes the fact that the judgement has removed ambiguities in the setting of personal cookies and that the handling of data has been regulated uniformly at European level.

eco publishes guidelines on the current reform of the German Network Enforcement Act: The Association of the Internet Industry supports the containment of hate, incitement and right-wing extremism as well as the fight against illegal content on the internet. The controversial law continues to cause fierce debate due to an obligation to surrender passwords as well as a duty to disclosure inventory and usage data by telemedia service providers.

The online surveillance by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of non-German nationals when not in Germany is unconstitutional in its current form, the German Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has decided.

dotmagazine spoke to Inger Paus from the Vodafone Institute on digitalization, social inclusion and the impact of digital skepticism on women in the tech industry. Read more on dotmagazine.

Internet availability during the COVID-19 crisis requires the work of a diverse ecosystem of Internet infrastructure organizations, from ISPs to IXPs to cloud and data center operators, to those who manage and distribute content to the last mile. Join i2Coalition and eco and find out about efforts to make sure that things...

Lucia Falkenberg of the eco Association on how eco's new study on Women in Tech can help companies to find and retain female talents – and reap the rewards for doing so. Read more on dotmagazine.

eco draws up a 6-point catalogue of requirements from the Internet industry for the strengthening of Europe as a digital location

On Friday, 8 May 2020 leading industry experts from different layers of the Internet infrastructure - including Access Providers, Internet Exchange Points, Content Delivery Networks, Data Centers, and Cloud Service Providers – will discuss how they are maintaining the Internet during COVID-19. John Graham-Cumming,...

Ingobert Veith from HUAWEI offers insight into the benefits of AI, together with 5G and IoT technologies – for everything from networks to autonomous driving, and on to fighting Covid-19. Read more on dotmagazine.  

The Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, founded under the umbrella of the eco Association, welcomes the decision of the energy ministers and senators of the German states to reduce electricity costs and thereby initiate a sustainable energy transition economic programme.

It’s no secret that, in the Internet industry, there are currently far less women employed as specialists than men. Across the globe, women represent just one quarter of tech specialists, while in Europe, just one sixth of such roles are occupied by women. In order to support companies in their efforts to access the world’s greatest untapped pool of talent, today the eco Association has published a study and guide “Women in Tech Across the Globe: A Good Practice Guide for Companies”.

The lock down measures implemented in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic are leading to negative consequences for all economic sectors. This will also slow the previous growth of the Internet industry in Germany. However, these negative effects are expected to be fully compensated for by the end of 2022. The prerequisite for this, however, is that the economy must be ramped up again as far as possible in 2020. This is the conclusion reached by eco – Association of the Internet Industry and the management consultancy Arthur D. Little in preliminary extracts of the study “The Internet Industry 2020 – 2025”, which presents current industry trends and growth forecasts every five years.

eco formulates 5 points for the revision of the GDPR: Since May 2018, the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has regulated how public authorities, companies, associations, organizations or, for example, hospitals may handle citizens' data.  Now the first official evaluation of the much-discussed regulation is due.  eco – Association of the Internet still sees too many unresolved legal questions and practical problems that arise during implementation.

In this webinar Patrick L. Jones, Senior Director, Global Stakeholder Engagement and Matt Larson, VP Research at ICANN, will discuss the analysis of COVID-19 related lockdowns on ICANN-managed root server traffic, and give an overview of DNS ecosystem security issues and challenges with the current situation.

eco is celebrating its 25 years of existence this year under the motto of “Internet with Responsibility”. At the same time, the concept of digital sovereignty is being discussed increasingly in the media, politics, and parts of the Internet industry. But what does digital sovereignty actually mean and how does it relate to the anniversary motto? We asked Alexander Rabe, Managing Director of eco – Association of the Internet Industry, for his thoughts.

Axel Pawlik, former MD of RIPE NCC, reminisces on the early days of RIPE & eco, and on how the tech community found its voice to start talking to governments. Read more on dotmagazine.

What influence is COVID-19 having on the Internet industry? To develop a differentiated understanding of the mood of our sector, eco has started an industry survey “Corona and the Internet industry”.

Wido Potters from BIT BV warns that centralization of data can lead to vendor lock-in and increasing risks. Read more on dotmagazine.

Thomas Niessen of the Trusted Cloud Competence Network and Andreas Weiss of the eco Association and Eurocloud Deutschland_eco outline aspects being considered in the framework for assessment of GAIA-X providers. Read more on dotmagazine.

GAIA-X has been announced by end of October 2019: “A Federated Data Infrastructure as the Cradle of a Vibrant European Ecosystem”. Andreas Weiss, Head of Digital Business Models at eco, assembled a summary to show the future impact in the space of innovation and fair data sharing and the support to be expected by GAIA-X.

Julia Janssen-Holldiek, Director of the CSA, clarifies what companies now have to consider when communicating by email with their customers. Read more on dotmagazine.