Highlights: Neelie Kroes at the 2011 Digital Agenda Summit organised by the Lisbon Council

You can read the full text or just my highlights: I. Digital Single Market First, because a digital Single Market seems such an obvious step. In principle, it should be easier to sell digital goods from a distance than “real” goods. … If I can watch my local team’s football matches using online pay-per-view in … Continue reading “Highlights: Neelie Kroes at the 2011 Digital Agenda Summit organised by the Lisbon Council”

You can read the full text or just my highlights:

I. Digital Single Market

  • First, because a digital Single Market seems such an obvious step. In principle, it should be easier to sell digital goods from a distance than “real” goods. … If I can watch my local team’s football matches using online pay-per-view in one Member State, why not in 27?
  • 31% of retailers think a more harmonised regulatory environment would boost their cross-border sales.
  • To be a Chief Information Officer in Europe, having to comply with 27 data protection regimes or facing 27 different legal environments for Cloud Computing is daunting and bad for business.
  • The Single Market is at the centre of the EU.

II. Digital Content and Open Data

  • When it comes to content, the public sector can lead. I’m just back from a trip to Kenya, where the Government has begun to open up its public sector, providing valuable raw material for others to use, for instance weather data and demographic statistics. And the Kenyan people are already seeing the benefits, whether as businessmen, civil society groups, researchers, citizens, or public authority representatives.
  • We need to change that, we need to overcome the inertia to this development in the public sector. I want public sector workers on all levels to be proud of providing a first-rate data and information service to citizens which can be re-used to create new content and new services

III. Trust and Privacy online

  • I believe we need sound rules based on three principles:
    First, transparency so that citizens know exactly what the deal is.
    Second, fairness so that citizens are not forced or tricked into sharing their data.
    And third, user control so that citizens can decide – in a simple and effective manner – what they allow others to know.
  • I also want to improve confidence by, for example, ensuring people know their children can surf safely, respectfully and responsibly; and countering the increasing number of cyber-threats against our networks and infrastructures.

IV. Broadband for all

  • Perhaps most importantly, we must ensure we have super fast digital networks for everyone: the oxygen of the digital ecosystem.

V. Cloud Computing

  • Smaller companies and start-ups in particular have much to gain from the cloud
  • But smaller companies also have the least resources and market leverage to negotiate a market place dominated by uncertainty and missing, incomplete or unclear rules.
  • Another issue is data portability: smaller companies typically do not have a strong negotiating situation with their suppliers. Clear commitments by such suppliers to data portability, to not making it unnecessarily difficult for customers to switch, are therefore essential.
  • Cloud computing has no natural geographical borders and we are therefore also working with our international partners on this

Are these not reasonable and obvious suggestions?

My concern is how many of them will transfer to a small region to the north of a backwater island in the far west of Europe.

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