The Global Web in Regional Politics: The Regulatory and Political Debate on Digitalisation and the Internet of Things
The author analyses how aspects and processes associated with the digital transformation interfere with the governance and regulation of the emerging Industrial Internet and the Internet of Things. Building on the general argument that disruptive business
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Abstract
The author analyses how aspects and processes associated with the digital transformation interfere with the governance and regulation of the emerging Industrial Internet and the Internet of Things. Building on the general argument that disruptive business models pose a threat to highly regulated industries, the author emphasises the differing regulatory approaches chosen by European and US policymakers. The author then stresses the importance of harmonised European policies. In order to fully unleash the potential associated with the digital transformation of industries, European digital economies will arguably depend on a common digital market because the current predominance of national initiatives tends to foster fragmentation of markets instead of pooling resources to enhance European competitiveness. The chapter concludes by providing corresponding guidelines on how public affairs and related issues are set to change in the light of digital transformation.
Introduction: The Digital Transformation In 2014, the Internet giant Google spent $3.2 billion on buying Nest, a provider of a rather mundane technology: building thermostats. Trumpf, a typical German SME company with an engineering heritage, now runs Axoom, a vendor-neutral online platform with pre-installed apps for the world of production. In Houston, Siemens, the global engineering conglomerate, has set up a vehicle-to-infrastructure communications system using anonymised signals from smartphones in vehicles to predict traffic flows and dynamically alter the timing of traffic lights. These examples highlight how the process of digitalisation no longer just transforms our S. Denig (*) Siemens EU Representation Office, Brussels, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 J. Klewes et al. (eds.), Out-thinking Organizational Communications, Management for Professionals, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41845-2_13
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communication, our social life and our shopping behaviour. Through the connection of billions and billions of items to the Internet, the world of real things and the virtual reality merge. With ubiquitous sensors, ever larger data storage and processing capacities in the cloud as well as new Big Data analytics, the Internet conquers the real world. This development—which today is only at the beginning— has been described as the Internet of Things (IoT) or, in its industrial application, as the Industrial Internet or Industry 4.0. It has the potential to generate enormous benefits for individuals and societies. And in the world of business, it is blurring the boundaries between traditional engineering and information technology. Lawmakers observe this latest wave of digitalisation with mixed feelings. While they appreciate the progress that it can engender for societies and economies, they are confronted with complex new challenges for regulation and policymaking. Who owns the data? How can individual data rights be protected? Do existing policies that were drafted before the eme
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