Digital Discourse / Archives for David LeDuc

SIIA Announces Recs. for Fed. Cloud and IT Reform, Joins Pledge to Help Stop Botnets, and More Opposition for ACTA

June 5, 2012 By

SIIA Announces Five Recommendations for Federal Cloud and IT Reform
SIIA’s Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) today released an authoritative guide to help Federal CIOs and IT companies work together to effectively transition to a new cloud-based environment. SIIA crafted the guide to provide specific recommendations for fostering the development of the cloud in the Federal government and harnessing its full economic potential. PSIG released the guide as part of the NIST Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop beginning today, and to coincide with the June 9th deadline for the 18-month deliverables for the 25 Point Plan to Reform Federal IT. The report offers five key recommendations:

1. Continue to promote the “Cloud First” policy developed in 2010
2. OMB and GSA should work together and with industry to remove barriers to effective planning and procurement.
3. Promote changes to federal acquisition process and culture that to ensure they keep pace with technology
4. Lower the barrier of market entry for small businesses
5. Develop a comprehensive Federal IT strategy roadmap

Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog

SIIA Joins Pledge for Leadership Role in Stopping Botnets
Last week, SIIA joined with a group of industry and the Obama Administration in announcing a cooperative initiative to combat malicious botnets, which a growing threat to the online economy and national security. Specifically, the Industry Botnet Group, DHS and DOC released on May 30 a set of principles for addressing the challenge of botnets across the entire Internet ecosystem. In addition to this framework for collaboration, the government also will step up public outreach efforts to educate users about online threats and will coordinate efforts to address the technical threats posed by botnets. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.

More Opposition for ACTA
Three key EU committees – the Committee on Legal Affairs (Juri), Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) — have voted against [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18264856] the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Their views will now be considered by the larger International Trade Committee (Inta) which will hold its vote on June 21st and then make a formal recommendation to the European Parliament. The European Parliament will make its final decision on ACTA in July.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup

Mozilla Confirms Consensus on User Choice for Behavioral Advertising

June 1, 2012 By

There is broad agreement that consumers must have a clear and easy mechanism for opting out of online tracking. And there is also broad agreement that industry self-regulation and voluntary efforts are making substantial progress in developing solutions to provide consumers with meaningful choices about collection of their data. So much so that Obama administration officials just months ago cited these efforts as an example of voluntary but enforceable best practices.

Why is there such agreement on this topic? Well, that’s because customers, businesses and policymakers alike also broadly recognize the need to preserve the economic model that has been propelling the availability of content online: effective advertising. Indeed, targeted advertising is more effective and generates substantially more value that, in turn, provides for much of the valuable content provided on the Web.

In light of the broad consensus emerging around behavioral advertising and consumer choice, it was surprising that Microsoft announced yesterday that Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 will have “Do Not Track” (DNT) feature on by default—a move that defies the objective to enable users to make informed decisions.

But of even greater concern, Microsoft’s decision is likely to have the opposite effect. That is, in light of the fact that there is not yet consensus among the advertising industry (including among Microsoft’s own ad networks) on how to implement settings such as this, the end result will be confusion and disappointment from consumers when this ultimately doesn’t do what it says it will do. The Microsoft blog announcing the decision was clear in admitting that a uniform, industry-wide response is still under development:

“Sending a DNT signal from a browser is only part of the process. Obviously, for DNT to be effective, it is also important that websites have a common understanding of what the consumer expects when their browser sends the DNT signal. As well as engineering the world’s most used browser, Microsoft also owns and manages a growing advertising business – including a network that provides advertising to our own and other Web properties, so we have a unique perspective into this discussion.

At the moment there is not yet an agreed definition of how to respond to a DNT signal, and we know that a uniform, industry-wide response will be the best way to provide a consistent consumer experience across the Web.”

Fortunately, in response to Microsoft’s recent decision, Mozilla announced that the user’s choice is absolutely critical on this issue, and they confirmed that it will not set the “Do Not Track” feature in its Firefox browser to turn on by default. As articulated by Mozilla:

“DNT is intended to express an individual’s choice, or preference, to not be tracked. It’s important that the signal represents a choice made by the person behind the keyboard and not the software maker, because ultimately it’s not the browser being tracked, it’s the user.”

Amen, this also reflects the consensus that has emerged within the W3C Tracking Protection that “[k]ey to that notion of expression is that it must reflect the user’s preference, not the preference of some institutional or network-imposed mechanism outside the user’s control.”

So, again, there’s broad consensus on user choice and preference. Hopefully Microsoft will come to recognize this and continue to support the consensus effort.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Privacy Tagged With:

SIIA DPR: Paper Clarifies Global Reality on Gov. Access to Data in the Cloud, SCOTUS Ruling Could Raise Bar for Business Method and Software Patents, Administration Releases Digital Government Roadmap

May 29, 2012 By

Paper Clarifies Global Reality on Gov. Access to Data in the Cloud

A recent paper by Hogan Lovells’ Privacy and Information Management practice, debunks the frequently-expressed assumption that the United States is alone in permitting governmental access to data for law enforcement or national security reasons. It examines the laws of ten countries, including the United States, with respect to governmental authorities’ ability to access data stored in or transmitted through the Cloud, and documents the similarities and differences among the various legal regimes. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.

SCOTUS Ruling Could Raise Bar for Business Method and Software Patents

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision in WildTangent, Inc. v. Ultramercial, LLC which upheld the patentability of Ultramercial’s business method patent covering media distribution methods that allow users to view online content by viewing online ads instead of paying for the content. The ruling could potentially raise the bar to patentability under the “subject matter” requirement of section 101 for all business method patents and possibly future software patents as well. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.

Administration Releases Digital Government Roadmap

Last week, Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel released a Roadmap for Digital Government, entitled “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People.” The strategy document provides agencies with a 12-month roadmap that focuses on several priority areas and seeks to enable more efficient and coordinated digital service delivery by requiring agencies to establish specific, measurable goals for delivering better digital services; encouraging agencies to deliver information in new ways that fully utilize the power and potential of mobile and web-based technologies; ensuring the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy; requiring agencies to establish central online resources for outside developers and to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.

District Race to the Top Appropriately Prioritizes Personalized Learning

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week announced a new federal Race to the Top District competition, providing nearly $400 million in school district grants to “personalize and individualize” to “take classroom learning beyond a one-size-fits-all model and bring it into the 21st century.” SIIA has long been a leading voice for redesigning education to personalize learning, and applauds the Obama Administration for providing this leadership. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup

Administration Releases Digital Government Roadmap

May 29, 2012 By

Last week, Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel released a Roadmap for Digital Government, entitled “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People.” The strategy document provides agencies with a 12-month roadmap that focuses on several priority areas and seeks to enable more efficient and coordinated digital service delivery by requiring agencies to establish specific, measurable goals for delivering better digital services; encouraging agencies to deliver information in new ways that fully utilize the power and potential of mobile and web-based technologies; ensuring the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy; requiring agencies to establish central online resources for outside developers and to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default.

The strategy is the result of an Executive Order (EO 13571) issued by the President in late April to require executive departments and agencies to identify ways to use innovative technologies to streamline their delivery of services to lower costs, decrease service delivery times and improve the customer experience.

Importantly, with the release of this Roadmap, VanRoekel has declared that agencies will increasingly open up their valuable data to the public and set up Developer pages to give external developers tools to build new services, which will include a transformation of Data.gov into a data and API catalog that in real time pulls directly from agency websites. Additionally, adopting the incremental approach articulated in the Cloud First Directive, agencies have been directed to mobilize two of their priority customer-facing services in the next 12 months, and a wholesale reworking of the Federal government’s own use of mobile technology.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Privacy

Paper Clarifies Global Reality on Gov. Access to Data in the Cloud

May 29, 2012 By

In the midst of the cloud computing revolution, perhaps the greatest barriers are the concerns, often driven by myths and misunderstandings, about Government access to data in “the cloud.” Fortunately, a recent paper by Hogan Lovells’ Privacy and Information Management practice, debunks the frequently-expressed assumption that the United States is alone in permitting governmental access to data for law enforcement or national security reasons. It examines the laws of ten countries, including the United States, with respect to governmental authorities’ ability to access data stored in or transmitted through the Cloud, and documents the similarities and differences among the various legal regimes.

Developed by experienced counsel in various different jurisdictions, the paper examines governmental authority to access data in the Cloud in the following countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom, and the United States.

In summary, the paper concludes that it is incorrect to assume that the U.S. Government’s access to data in the Cloud is greater than that of other advanced economies, and that businesses are misleading themselves and their customers if they believe that restricting cloud service providers to one jurisdiction better insulates data from governmental access.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Policy - Cloud Computing

USITC Announces Seminar on Cloud Computing, Outlook for TPP Deal in 2012 Uncertain, and G8 Leaders’ Joint Declaration Keys on IPR

May 22, 2012 By

USITC Announces Seminar on Int’l Dimensions of Cloud Computing
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) this week announced a Seminar scheduled for June 19 to highlight an article recently published by the agency that provides an overview of the global market for cloud services, and an excellent resource for policymakers seeking to answer questions about cloud computing and how to enable greater adoption. The study helps us understand just how damaging trade barriers could be for the growth of our software and computer services firms, providing evidence and concluding that “cloud computing is already a source of significant revenue for U.S. exporters and multinational firms.” Read more about the article on SIIA’s Digital Discourse blog, or for more information about the briefing, contact Philip Stone.

Forced Localization:
The New Protectionism Localization requirements, or governments attempt to restrict the sale of goods and services within their territory to those which have been produced locally, have been around for a long time, but what seemed like a series of isolated incidents has recently become too much of a trend. If left unchecked, this trend could seriously undermine the goal of increasing the flow of goods and services across borders, particularly increasingly cloud-based IT products and services. SIIA and other worldwide businesses and trade associations are seeking an effective response to the growing threat of a new protectionism based on localization initiatives. In a recent post on SIIA’s Digital Discourse blog, Mark MacCarthy highlights these challenges and argues that only a sustained, high-level commitment from the U. S. government will turn the tide against this new form of economic nationalism. SIIA urges that this issue be moved to the highest levels of U.S. government decision making and raised in all significant international venues including economic gatherings of heads of state such as the recent G-8 meeting, meetings of the ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group, committees of the World Trade Organization, OECD working groups and trade discussions such as TPP. Read more.

Outlook for TPP Deal in 2012 Uncertain as Dallas Discussions Conclude
This round of discussions for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement concluded in Dallas on May 16 with indications that a deal might not be possible this year. The sticking points include two of SIIA’s priorities for the negotiation–strong copyright protections and a proposal to ensure the free flow of electronic information across borders. On May 17, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held an oversight hearing on the TPP progress where business representatives confirmed the difficulties in moving ahead with the U.S. proposal on IP protection. Negotiators meet informally in June on the margins of a get-together of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group in Kazan, Russia. The next formal round of negotiations is scheduled for San Diego July 2-10.

G8 Leaders’ Joint Declaration on Global Economy Highlights Importance of IPR
President Obama and the other members of the G-8 leadership released a joint statement this weekend declared the pressing need for diligent protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights while committing to preserve and encourage the free exchange of information. The statement reads, “[g]iven the importance of intellectual property rights (IPR) to stimulating job and economic growth, we affirm the significance of high standards for IPR protection and enforcement, including through international legal instruments and mutual assistance agreements, as well as through government procurement processes, private-sector voluntary codes of best practices, and enhanced customs cooperation, while promoting the free flow of information.” The full G-8 Declaration can be found here.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup

USITC Report Explores Int’l Dimensions of Cloud Computing, Examines Policy Challenges and Potential Solutions

May 22, 2012 By

A recent article published by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) provides an overview of the global market for cloud services, and an excellent resource for policymakers’ questions about cloud computing and how to enable greater adoption.

At a time when policymakers around the world are struggling to keep pace with the rapid pace of technological change and the growth of cloud computing, the article explores the role of cloud computing in U.S. exports and examines the international dimensions, providing a concise overview of the key policy areas that are implicated as the cloud industry grows globally, and the ongoing attempts to address these challenges. As U.S. industry experts and cloud providers know, the key policy challenges associated with cross-border cloud computing and ensuring the seamless flow of information worldwide revolve largely around concerns associated with data privacy, security and localization requirements.

A major contribution of the study is the new set of estimates regarding the contribution of cloud computing to U.S. services exports. When a U.S. firm or foreign affiliate sells cloud computer or software services to an overseas customer, this counts as an export and favorably impacts the US balance of trade in services. But localization requirements can hurt these exports. As the office of the United State Trade Representative said in its 2012 Telecom Trade report, “…restrictions on data access and transfers are becoming more consequential trade barriers.”

The study helps us understand just how damaging these trade barriers could be for the growth of our software and computer services firms. It finds that in 2010, U.S. firms exported cloud services worth almost $1.5 billion from their U.S. facilities to customers in other countries. In 2009, they exported an additional $1.4 billion of cloud service to foreign purchasers from their affiliates located abroad. The study concludes that “cloud computing is already a source of significant revenue for U.S. exporters and multinational firms.”

In the absence of trade barriers, cloud exports could become much more significant in the years ahead. Cloud provision of software and computer services is the future of the industry and is growing much faster than the overall growth of these markets. Gartner estimates that global revenue from all software sales will increase 8.4% per year through 2015 – from $244 billion in 2010 to $347 billion 2015, while the cloud provision of software will increase much faster – 22.6% per year from $10.0 billion in 2010 to $21.3 billion in 2015 (see ITC study p. 6). Gartner estimates that global revenue from computing services will increase 22.6% per year through 2015 – from $791 billion in 2010 to $983 billion in 2015, while forecasting that cloud computing services will grow from $4.1 billion in 2010 to $22.0 billion in 2015, a dramatic growth rate of 87.3% per year (see ITC study p. 6). The potential growth of cloud exports in a world without trade barriers is enormous.

Importantly, the article highlights that governments around the world have sought to address these key policy challenges through domestic policies, bilateral agreements, and multilateral institutions. On the international level, approaches have included establishing non-mandatory, best-practice guidelines as well as binding commitments. The article cites many sources in describing both approaches as important: the former may be developed rapidly and are more able to keep pace with technological change, while the latter emerge more slowly, but provide investors a greater sense of certainty about countries’ policies.

Additionally, the article compares the role of developed and developing countries, concluding that developing countries have played a smaller role than developed ones in the market for cloud services and international policymaking related to the cloud, citing the developing countries lack of infrastructure and domestic policies to more fully develop their cloud industries. Finally, case studies of India and China provide evidence of the great potential for growth of cloud computing in developing countries, while highlighting the divergent approaches, challenges and opportunities that these countries are seeking to overcome.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Cloud Computing Tagged With: ,
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