March 8, 2022 The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put global interconnection to the test as never before. Every media outlet is now talking about “Splinternet.” The ruptures extend beyond the internet and web to include many forms of cooperation and trade, especially in financial systems. This Narrative briefly comments...
A February 1 speech by India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, outlined some aspirational goals for the Indian Digital economy. Two announcements that stood out were the launch of Digital Rupee, India’s version of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC); and taxation of virtual digital assets. India will now tax income...
Representatives of the Biden administration are now saying that its “Alliance for the Future of the Internet” will be launched "in coming weeks.” Despite our earlier article indicating that the initiative might have some promise, the more we’ve heard, the more pessimistic we are about it. The Alliance has three...
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...
At this point, it’s certainly not news that the Kremlin has been seeking to exert full control over what it regards as its national, Russian-only information space (информационном пространстве). For almost a decade – that is, since Putin returned to office for his third presidential term in 2012 – the...
A forthcoming research paper from IGP examines the rise of trade barriers between the U.S. and China in the digital economy. (We presented a first draft of the research at our conference on Comparative Analysis of Platform Governance in the U.S. and China. (A recording is available.) Our analysis uncovered...
IGP and Beijing Normal University are cooperating on a joint research/conference effort to compare and contrast the American and Chinese approach to platform governance. Platform governance refers to the rules, practices, and design decisions used to influence the way multi-sided markets or information intermediaries manage users, data and content, and...
In December 2020, a Committee of Experts (CoE)) appointed by the Indian government to deliberate on data governance released its report on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework (NPD Framework). The CoE has proposed creating national legislation and a regulator, the Non-Personal Data Authority (NPDA), to establish rights of India, Indian citizens...
Under Chairman Ajit Pai, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission made itself a tool of the Trump administration's assault on economic relations with China. One part of this was an attempt to expel China Telecom (Americas) from the U.S. market. The FCC issued an order to China Telecom of the Americas (CTA)...
As we have noted for the past two years, Internet governance (IG) is one of the focal points of US-China tensions. But IG is but one part of the economic, social and political relationships among the world's two biggest economies. On November 16, a report addressing the bigger picture, “Meeting...
“In characteristically rigorous fashion, Mueller’s outstanding book punctures the alarmist myth of Internet fragmentation and helps us to understand what is really at stake as nations and other groups vie for power over the Internet.”
