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.

The quintessential message of eco at the German federal government's Digital Summit, titled “More Sustainability by Means of Digitalisation”: Digitalisation holds enormous potential for sustainability and climate protection.

On 26th November, for the 19th time, eco – Association of the Internet Industry presented the eco://awards, one of the most prestigious awards in the Internet industry.

An Interview with Maurice Kemmann, Founder and Managing Director of Cloud Mates GmbH

The Covid-19 pandemic is serving as a digital accelerator. This is having a particularly profound impact on our working world, says Lucia Falkenberg, Head of the New Work Competence Group and CPO at eco – Association of the Internet Industry. She expects the next evolutionary stage of the working world to come through artificial intelligence (AI).

Are European data centres ready for the climate targets of the EU Green Deal, to strengthen climate and environmental protection through digitalisation? A new study with best practices in the field of energy-efficient data centres formulates technological development potentials as well as policy recommendations.

eco – Association of the Internet Industry is part of the newly elected board of EuroISPA, the largest umbrella organisation of European Internet service providers. Thomas Bihlmayer, Policy Adviser at eco, will assume the role of treasurer for the association.

From 1 January 2021 onwards, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (“the UK”) will no longer be party to the European Union legislation, rules and agreements (aka “Brexit”).  We asked Eva Kasprowicz, an IT and Privacy lawyer at Fieldfisher (Germany) LLP, about the potential impacts from an EU privacy perspective and how affected businesses should prepare for it.

Are data centres in Europe ready to meet the climate goals of the EU Green Deal? And what best practices can data centres already use today? The answers to these questions are provided in the new study "Data Centres in Europe - Opportunities for Sustainable Digitalisation", published by the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany in cooperation with the Borderstep Institute and with the support of the Vodafone Institute. In an eco netTALK on Tuesday, 24 November, we will present the key results of the study.  

An interview with Sven Ramuschkat, Managing Director, Co-Founder at tecRacer GmbH & Co. KG.

With the presentation of a joint draft, two German Ministries are seeking to fundamentally reform the Telecommunications Act (TKG) and to thereby transpose the European Code for Electronic Communications within this legislative term. eco is deeply critical of the fact that only a 14-day period has been granted for positions on the discussion draft - especially given that this draft features substantial gaps.

Politics, science and industry are currently meeting together at the GAIA-X Summit. The aim of the online summit: “We’re now laying the groundwork for all the services and functions that GAIA-X will offer going forward,” says Andreas Weiss from the eco Association. In his keynote, he's delving into what the industry can expect from the initiative.

Plans of the EU States to expand digital surveillance in the wake of the recent terrorist attack in Vienna trigger concerns for eco – Association of the Internet Industry.

Last week, the German EU Presidency presented a proposal on the ePrivacy Regulation, with a decision possibly to be made tomorrow by the Telecommunications Working Group. For eco, the proposal is a significant step backwards for digitalisation.

There is a lot of controversy and confusion when it comes to DNS over HTTPS (DoH). That is why eco produced a discussion paper which comprehensively reviews the policy and technical as well as the business implications of DoH.

An interview with Mario Apitz, Founder & CEO of Alice&Bob.Company GmbH, on why they decided to become a member of EuroCloud Native, and what the Cloud Native Initiative should achieve when it comes to the dialogue with competitors and suppliers.

Smartphone apps are a key component for reining in the Corona pandemic: they can warn us when we are at risk and thus contain the spread of the disease. How can we increase the level of acceptance of these apps so that more people use them? This is a question investigated by Christine Utz at the Ruhr-University Bochum in the NRW Research College SecHuman