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...

CCP Continues to Seal Off Its Digital Economy

The Chinese Communist Party's focus on building a governance regime for cyberspace has resulted in the rapid introduction of several new laws and regulations on data governance, cybersecurity, the digital economy, and online media content. The targeting of the digital sector with so many new restrictions, laws and regulations is...

The Narrative: TikTok still worries the US, US-China conference nears, Bitcoin finds a home, Canada goes nuts

Biden didn’t “revoke” the TikTok ban President Biden issued an executive order June 9 on “Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries.” The media widely reported it as “rescinding” or “revoking” two Trump executive orders that banned new downloads of WeChat and TikTok. But that framing is wildly inaccurate. First,...

The Narrative (June 03, 2021): Bitcoin and ransomware; IGP’s data enclosure research; WhatsApp backs down on privacy update 

Ransomware fuels talk of Bitcoin ban, Russia and the US clash over YouTube, WhatsApp backtracks on enforcing its new privacy policy, and IGP presents at the PLSC for the first time. Bitcoin and Ransomware Successful, highly disruptive ransomware attacks are prompting calls to ban Bitcoin or find ways to crack...

The Narrative (May 19, 2021): Cybersecurity EO and encrypted data; Indian 5G trials and China fights back

This week we cover some of Biden's Cybersecurity Order and a few 5G related developments.  Biden’s Cybersecurity EO: Encrypted data at rest for me, why not thee? On the heels of the Colonial Pipeline, Microsoft Exchange Server, and SolarWinds incidents, the White House has issued a new Executive Order that...

The Narrative (March 30, 2021)

Facing a hostile U.S. Congress, Facebook proposes “updated Internet regulations” that push more responsibility for content regulation decisions to the government. Europe is already trying to do just that, but civil liberties groups are campaigning against it. India considers a tech nationalist approach to cryptocurrency. A taste of “updated Internet...

The Narrative (November 30, 2020)

The Narrative is a twice-monthly survey of key developments in Internet governance. This time we take up competition law activity against platforms, and the EU data governance initiative. Competition policy and platforms As Internet-driven platforms achieve ever-greater prominence and market power in the 21st century, antitrust actions are proliferating based...