On 24 February 2022, Dr. Franziska Brantner of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), formally approved the funding for the Car Repair 4.0 consortium.  The platform is designed to enable independent car repair shops and SMEs to use AI-based diagnostic procedures to repair and maintain vehicles.

The starting signal has been given for the Car Repair 4.0 (Autowerkstatt 4.0) project. In it, a consortium of partner companies and research institutes is developing a Germany-wide platform for the trustworthy exchange of industry-specific vehicle data. With the help of the platform, car repair shops can use intelligent fault diagnosis systems

This year, it’s not just the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the threatening climate change which will continue to drive forward digital transformation in the economy and society. “Digitalisation is part of the solution to many challenges,” says eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme.

Summa one of 24 new Gaia-X AISBL Board Members DE-CIX as a blueprint for other Internet Exchange operators Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX, the operator of the world’s leading Internet Exchange in Frankfurt am Main, was one of 24 people elected to the Gaia-X AISBL Board during the organisation’s first general assembly...

Secure digital identities are a key factor for further digitalisation in Europe, a stronger convergence of the Digital Single Market, and more efficient public administration. In this regard, Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, comments on the update of the eIDAS Regulation by the EU Commission.

The project partners, coordinated by the eco Association, have completed the specification of the first four Gaia-X Federation Services. These form the technical basis for the development of a European data infrastructure for the secure digitalisation and networking of different participants.

As the Hannover Trade Fair 2021 has demonstrated, Internet-based solutions are gaining relevance and momentum in German industry. This means that increasing swathes of data are being generated by European companies, organisations and administrations. In the coming years, Gaia-X will help to maintain complete control over this data on a long-term basis and enable independent decisions to be made on who has access to it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Internet industry will be one of the most dynamic industries in Germany in the coming years, as a new joint study by the eco Association and the management consultancy Arthur D. Little shows. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, during which individual large segments of the Internet industry suffered slumps, an increase in revenue of almost 75 percent to approximately 253 billion Euro is expected by 2025.

The eco Association is working together with well-known partners on a Blockchain Governance Framework. Interested parties are invited to join the network of trust as consortium partners.

Logistics is the bottleneck in e-commerce: Eight out of ten online shoppers (85 percent) would like to see a delivery time before the last click when making a purchase. If this information is missing, one in three (32 percent) discontinue their purchase. A trend that is actually intensifying for frequent customers: 44 percent will not snap up an offer on the web if it remains unclear when products will arrive.

85 percent of employees in Germany are in favor of virtual working in light of the current crisis situation, as a representative survey of some 2,500 employees reveals. Experts from the eco Association provide concrete tips on how companies can remain up and running, in spite of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Service-Meister project was formally launched in Frankfurt am Main on 11 February 2020. Service-Meister was chosen for funding as part of the AI innovation competition of the German government.

As the IFA (the global innovations show) gets ready to open its doors in Berlin, an eco survey reveals that over a quarter of Germans are already using digital voice assistants. It also concludes: High data protection standards are key to the acceptance of AI.

Practical blockchain know-how for SMEs – 36-page white paper provides firsthand expert blockchain knowledge & application scenarios

Those who have already bought groceries over the Internet are generally happy and want to order again online, with online grocery-shopping proving particularly popular amongst households with children.  Room for improvement exists in the areas of sustainable and organic products.

On 11th December, around 100 experts met at the Blockchain Masters in Cologne, where it was agreed that, with the initial hype now behind us, more and more IT applications are now using blockchain technology as a given. In the future, this technology will even present alternatives to platform monopolies. Meanwhile, a focal point in 2019 will be asset tokenization.

On 28th November in Cologne, the eco Association will present one of the Internet industry’s most prestigious awards. In seven award categories, a jury of experts comprising of representatives from industry, academia, research, and politics has selected the three most promising submissions of 2018 and nominated them for the eco://award.

On 13th September, the eco Association e-Commerce and Online Marketing Competence Groups led an expert discussion in Frankfurt on how online retailers and shops can signal their trustworthiness and reliability – with factors such as professional design and functionalities, customer ratings, and quality seals.

The Internet as a retail path for goods of all kinds is growing strongly, but at the same time, returns present online retailers with challenges. A new study, however, has found that consumers are only making moderate use of their right to return articles and that returned articles are almost all resold.

Blockchain technology will have a decisive impact on the future of the mega-trend digitalization: this was a key message of the Blockchain Masters 2018 in Hamburg. Blockchain is regarded as offering massive potential for supporting transparent supply chains and public administration.

70 per cent of German companies would like public authorities to offer the option of exchanging data via blockchain: That is the main finding of a survey undertaken amongst companies by eco and YouGov. Effectively, the business sector in Germany are looking to administrative authorities to act as blockchain pioneers.

The discussion around electronic invoicing has picked up considerable momentum in recent weeks. The eco Association calls for stronger upskilling of users, a greater tailoring to practical user needs, and a certification of the quality of systems.

A multitude of new business concepts are emerging in the retail sector based on the growth in connection into the Internet of Things eco study recommends cross-segmental cooperation with other providers Development concepts aimed at making cities more efficient, progressive, and sustainable: this is what the term...

The declaration of consent of email recipients is the basis for legally compliant email marketing. This will apply in particular from 25 May 2018 – on this date, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will enter into force throughout Europe. Many companies are now asking how a declaration of consent needs to be formulated in order to be GDPR-compliant – given that the new regulation ...

Technical platforms based on blockchain will in particular support business applications and intermediary wants to create trust and process transactions. “New platforms are solving current problems in the areas of performance and scalability. So they will be able to take on more and more tasks in day-to-day business,” according to Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Prinz, Vice Chair of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT in Sankt Augustin.

Growing amounts of data confront many German companies with an impossible task, forcing them to squander their business potential The targeted customer approach is an underestimated competitive factor, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises Data should be used exclusively in the interests of the...