consolidation

5:09 am on December 5, 2019 · Andrew Sullivan (24), chatham house (6), consolidation (2)

WEBCAST TUESDAY: Who Runs the Internet: #InternetConsolidation and Control @ChathamHouse w/ @SullivanISOC @jennifercobbe @jsowell78 #CHEvents

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Livestream

LivestreamOn Tuesday 10 December 2019 at 18:00 UTC (1pm EST) Chatham House hosts a discussion ‘Who Runs the Internet: Internet Consolidation and Control‘ in London. In recent years, there has been a growing debate around the influence of a few large internet technology companies on the internet’s infrastructure and over the popular applications and social media platforms that we use every day. The internet which was once widely viewed as a collective platform for limitless, permissionless innovation, competition and growth, is now increasingly viewed as a consolidated environment dominated by a few. Such market dominance threatens to undermine the internet’s fundamental benefits as a distributed network in which no single entity has control.

The panel will examine the risks of consolidation throughout the internet’s technology stack such as the impact on complex supply chains that support applications, including cloud provisions, ‘as a service’. It will also explore the potential benefits, for example, when building out essential infrastructure to support faster and cheaper internet services in developing economies, consolidation can create economies of scale that bring the resource-intensive building blocks of the internet economy within the reach of new start-ups and innovators. The panel will provide an interdisciplinary perspective exploring the relationship between consolidation and evolutions in the internet infrastructure as well as unpacking its policy implications.

Participants
Andrew Sullivan, President and CEO, Internet Society
Jennifer Cobbe, Research Associate, Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge
Jesse Sowell, Assistant Professor, Department of International Affairs, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University
Chair: Emily Taylor, Associate Fellow, International Security, Chatham House, Editor, Journal of Cyber Policy

VIEW ON LIVESTREAM: https://livestream.com/internetsociety/internetconsolidation

TWITTER: #InternetConsolidation @ChathamHouse @SullivanISOC @jennifercobbe @jsowell78 #CHEvents

1:38 pm on June 7, 2018 · consolidation (2), isoc (163), survey (2)

RESPOND NOW! @InternetSociety survey on #Consolidation in the Internet Economy

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Internet SocietyLast year, the Internet Society published a comprehensive study to better understand the forces of change that will shape the Internet over the next five to seven years: The 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. By focusing attention on the significant potential of the Internet for innovation and sustainable development, but without denying or shirking the challenges it also introduces, the 2017 report has become a powerful tool in the global awareness and advocacy work of the Internet Society and its chapters.

We now want to work with you as our most important stakeholders on a new report that takes a closer look at one of those forces and how it may impact the future, namely Consolidation in the Internet Economy. Understood as growing forces of concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and fewer opportunities for market entry and competition, this topic includes the impact of consolidating forces on all stakeholders as well as on the Internet’s underlying and evolving technology.

We have selected this theme because findings from last year’s report, and developments since its release, indicated increasing concerns about a growing concentration of power in the Internet economy. They point to market and technical forces that may be driving consolidation at different ‘layers’ of the Internet, from traffic to communications providers to applications, as well as processes of vertical integration that allows for some companies to own the user experience at every stage and in an increasingly wide range of human activity. As users experience the Internet through a smaller number of providers, for example, there is the potential to restrict our access, choice and future ability to innovate. On the other hand, consolidation is not a new phenomenon but can be expected as markets and industries mature. To some, it is an evolution foremost characterized by lower prices and better services available to more people.

Today we are launching a survey available in English, French and Spanish seeking your input on this perceived trend of consolidation. Tell us your perspective; how it might be affecting you and your community, and what you foresee for the future of the Internet in the next five years.

Take the survey!