Companies can still enter the race for the renowned eco://award until Monday, August 10, 2020, with their top digital achievement.

Peter-Paul Urlaub, Consultant in the eco Complaints Office, has been elected as treasurer to the INHOPE board, allowing him to make an important contribution to the further development of the organisation.

On 2 July 2020, the German parliament, the Bundestag, passed a bill to amend the German Telemedia Act (TMG). eco regrets that the legislator did not take the opportunity to finally eliminate the basis for the blocking of Internet content, which creates legal uncertainty for businesses and citizens alike and is not an adequate means of enforcing copyright claims on the Internet.

For the majority of the companies, what is currently most relevant is a strategy that strengthens their own value creation in the long term.

The coalition's goal is to promote and defend encryption as a critical technology that helps keep people, their information, and communications private and secure.

The European Court of Justice today overturned the EU-US Privacy Shield Agreement.  The Association of the Internet Industry predicts a significant impact on many companies in the EU that have relied on the Privacy Shield for data transfers to the US.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide today, 16 July, in the Schrems II case, whether the standard contractual clauses of the European Commission and, if applicable, the EU-US Privacy Shield rule will apply to the transfer of personal data to countries outside the European Union.

Overall, Germans have little confidence in data security on online platforms. Despite this, users still do not take enough responsibility for their own security measures. This was the finding of a representative survey conducted on behalf of eco – Association of the Internet Industry

eco and the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures regard the German Federal Environment Ministry’s initiative as a successful start to driving forward sustainable digitalisation.

In this issue, dotmagazine looks at how the world has changed in recent decades, how the Corona crisis has turned our world upside-down, further changes that are still needed to make society and business more equitable, and how digital infrastructure is supporting us in mastering the challenges of this transformation.

To mark the start of the German EU Council Presidency, the Association of the Internet Industry has compiled a 6-point catalogue of requirements for Europe’s digitalisation. eco also calls for a pan-European Digitalisation Roundtable comprised of national representatives of the Internet industry.

The eco Association celebrated its 25 year anniversary with a major online birthday show on 26 June. The live-stream, which hundreds of eco members, partners, and companions joined, presented how eco and the Internet itself have developed in 25 years.

The association is celebrating this online with members, friends and partners within the framework of a big birthday show, which will review the decisive developments of the commercial Internet in Germany under the motto "25 years of Internet with Responsibility".

The GDPR has been in force since 25 May 2018. From the perspective of the eco Association, despite initial concerns, the GDPR has after two years now established itself as a fundamentally appropriate regulatory instrument – but there is still room for improvement in its implementation for SMEs.

From today forward, the AV-TEST Institute, in cooperation with the eco Association, will complement the extensive data spectrum of its AV-ATLAS Threat Intelligence with real-time monitoring data of IoT (Internet of Things) devices and services.

Despite Corona, the infrastructure layer will grow from 28.7 billion Euros (2019) to 30.3 billion Euros in 2020, thus growing faster than the other segments of the Internet industry The Corona crisis leads to an annual growth rate of 1.7 percent higher than originally expected for the Internet infrastructure from 2022 Corona...

On 04.06.2020, an event took place in the premises of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in Berlin to present the current status of GAIA-X. The German Minister for Economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier, and his French colleague, Bruno Le Maire, emphasised the great importance of an open, transparent and secure European data infrastructure.

Hate and incitement to hatred have no place on the Internet. eco fully endorses this view and is an active advocate for an Internet with responsibility. But eco still sees a substantial need for improvement in the drafts for the revision of the German NetzDG, presented by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV).

The goals that the German federal government is pursuing with its National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency Strategy 2050 are certainly ambitious. As a member of the government’s Working Group on Digitalisation, eco too is participating in the dialogue process to bring life to these goals.

When the EU passed the E-Commerce Directive (ECD) 20 years ago it built a solid ground for the years to come and it found long lasting balance between regulation and entrepreneurial freedoms. It was not perfect in the beginning and there are still questions about details nowadays. However, the European Court of Justice...

The ICANN69 Annual General Meeting (AGM) will not take place in Hamburg from 17-22 October 2020 as originally planned, 2,500 participants from over 120 countries had been expected. The meeting to coordinate core Internet functions, such as the unique assignment of names and addresses, has been moved online.

This Tuesday morning, the German government, the Robert Koch Institute and participating companies presented the German federal government's new COVID-19 tracking app, the Corona WarnApp. eco – Association of the Internet Industry, which has actively accompanied the discussion on the development of the new app from the very beginning, advocates the use of the data protection-compliant app and hopes for broad acceptance within the German population. However, eco rejects a legal obligation to install the app.

The EU Commission presented new measures to combat disinformation in connection with the coronavirus on 10 June 2020. With the new guidelines, operators of social networks are now to report monthly on how they deal with false information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

eco: a legally and planning secure regulatory environment is the basic prerequisite for the predominantly private-sector expansion of gigabit networks as the most important pillar for achieving the German and European gigabit targets. The association views an expansion obligation with concern.

A new research study by cyber security specialist McAfee reports on online behaviour and cyber security trends during the COVID-19 crisis. Read more on dotmagazine.

A case study by Wido Potters from BIT BV, showing how easy it is for recruiters to make companies more attractive to female applicants, and why this is important. Read more on dotmagazine.

eco Chair Oliver J. Süme: “GAIA-X paves the way for a new level of digital sovereignty, which at the same time goes hand in hand with high European data protection requirements and reliable IT security.”

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.