The Narrative: Who shall we trust: Aadhar, Chinese money…or the State of Texas?

June 1, 2022 Trust in Aadhar deteriorates India’s long-running experiment with digital identity is still controversial. On May 27, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issued a notification asking people to not share photocopies of their Aadhaar card as it could be “misused”. Yes, 13 years after Aadhaar was...

The Narrative: Unpacking the digital political economy; W3C reinvention; India’s new cybersecurity directive; crypto blender sanctioning

Unpacking the digital political economy As the summer begins, with long awaited in-person conferences and intensive research activity, we are busily developing the Call For Papers for our annual IGP conference for fall 2022, which will focus on the global digital political economy. What scholars and policy makers used to...

The Narrative: The DMA and encryption; Telegram and “misinformation”

March 28, 2022 The EC Digital Markets Act’s Misguided Moves The European Union’s Digital Markets Act is repeating all the mistakes made by telecom regulators 30-40 years ago in their attempt to promote competition by mandating interconnection and interoperability. They have decided to require certain forms of technical compatibility with...

The Narrative: Anti-Section 230 bill advances; ICANN’s judicial branch

February 22, 2022 EARN IT Act moves forward  The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a new version of the highly controversial Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act (EARN IT Act).  First introduced in March 2020, EARN IT Act pares back the immunity protections under Section 230 of...

The Narrative: European DNS policy, Apple & competition, Ukrainian cyber incidents, new IGP paper

Europe’s industrial policy for recursive DNS The European Commission’s 2020 Data Strategy is intended “to make the EU a leader in a data-driven society [by] creating a single market for data.” As part of its misguided “digital sovereignty” effort, the plan budgeted an initial 14 million Euro for a recursive...

The Narrative: IGF16 still on; Insurers confront cyber-attribution; India & cryptocurrency

Amid Covid concerns, IGF meets in Poland As of this moment, the UN Internet Governance Forum will still hold a hybrid meeting in Katowice, Poland. The hosts made an announcement affirming that "it goes ahead with the physical meeting as planned as it has taken all necessary precautions to make...

The Narrative: Clashing Cybersecurity Regulations, Monopoly Fines

November 15, 2021 U.S. Incident Reporting Mandate Moves to the NDAA - With a Notable Exception The Cyber Incident Reporting Act of 2021 is a Senate bill that attempts to centralize critical infrastructure incident data in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA). It is facing pushback from the private sector....

The Narrative: Meta-morphosis, data enclosure effects, 5G sanctions, global encryption day, Pegasus probe

November 1, 2021 Facebook tries to change the subject After becoming the scapegoat of choice for all of society’s ills, from the “death of democracy” to teenage girls’ social comparisons to amplifying hate speech, Mark Zuckerberg announced a change to the company’s name and a shift in its focus. While...