GLOBAL
Consumer and digital rights groups call on governments to better protect people’s fundamental rights in trade deals
DTA: Leading consumer and digital rights organizations across the globe welcome the recent announcement by the U.S. government, indicating that it is withdrawing support from controversial data flows and source code rules in the Joint Statement Initiative on e-commerce.
We call on all governments to use this opportunity to consider the consequences of including poorly drafted clauses in their trade agreements that could weaken their citizens’ fundamental digital rights. This is particularly important for developing countries.
Instead of including rules on data flows and source code in trade agreements, governments should look for alternatives that will not affect their policy space and their ability to protect their citizens’ digital rights. They should consult consumer and digital rights groups and regularly inform them of the state of play of digital trade negotiations.
WTO electronic commerce draft Chair’s text (Jan 2024)
Bilaterals.org: The following Chair’s text, dated 15 January 2024, has been prepared by the Co-convenors of the WTO JSI on E-commerce for the purpose of further review and negotiation.
In the upcoming meeting (30 January – 2 February 2024), the Co-convenors propose that Members engage in a first reading of the Chair’s Text in its entirety. Given the nature of negotiations at the WTO, it is unlikely that any Member will see all their drafting preferences reflected in the Chair’s Text. Hence, the Co-convenors request Members to take a holistic approach in considering the Chair’s Text. We trust that you share our view that this Chair’s Text represents a commercially meaningful and inclusive package, reflects broadly the views and feedback of all participants since discussions began in 2019, and provides a sound basis for us to achieve a consensus agreement.
WTO: Controversial JSI e-commerce decision eyed for MC13
TWN: Australia, Japan, and Singapore, the co-convenors of the controversial Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on E-commerce, have intensified the “WTO electronic commerce negotiations” in an attempt to announce a decision at the WTO’s upcoming 13th ministerial conference (MC13) that is seemingly legally flawed and replete with questionable goals, said people familiar with the development.
In what appears to be a race to announce a decision in parallel with the proposed plurilateral Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) at MC13, which begins in Abu Dhabi on 26 February, the JSI co-convenors issued a draft chair’s text on 15 January.
The circulation of the Joint Statement by interested participants expressing their intention to initiate exploratory discussions on E-commerce at MC11 does not represent a multilateral mandate decided by consensus.
The draft text on JSI on e-commerce appears replete with legal inconsistencies as well as seemingly illegitimate goals, said several negotiators who asked not to be quoted
EUROPE
The stock market story of 2023? The growing domination of US tech
The Guardian: In the old days, there were the FAANGs, the five big US tech stocks that dominated the investment landscape – Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet). That picture is now out of date. Say hello instead to what is variously called the Super Seven or the Magnificent Seven – four of the above (the dropout being Netflix) plus Microsoft, Tesla and the chip-maker Nvidia. This group’s domination is the stock market story of 2023.
An assessment of Meta’s new paid-subscription model from a consumer law perspective
BEUC: Meta has implemented a “pay-for-no-ad” model for Facebook and Instagram in the EU where users are required to pay approximately 120 € and 155 € annually if they wish to avoid their personal data being used for advertising purposes.
From a consumer law perspective, the user is faced with a mandatory choice which needs to be taken for the continued use of the service, where the persistence of the newsfeed lock, the information provided, the choices imposed, and the overall context amount to an unfair, misleading, and aggressive practice.
Meta is one of the first major bigtech players turning to such new paid schemes for its users. Others – like for instance TikTok – may follow in a near future. This move towards privacy-as-a-service is also likely to get more importance in a near future. For example, since the beginning of 2023, Meta has been trying out a new subscription plan in Australia and New Zealand where consumers can pay to have access to better protection from impersonation or better access to customer support when users experience problems with their accounts. This will have very important consequences for consumers’ wellbeing when using such services and for the personal data economy.
NORTH AMERICA
Canada’s planning to impose a digital services tax. The U.S. government is not amused.
Marketplace: Ottawa wants to levy a 3% tax on revenues from online advertising and marketplaces, plus social media and sales of user data. Only the biggest tech companies doing business in Canada would pay the tax. Renu Zaretsky at the Tax Policy Center says that means: “It tends to fall on very large companies that happen to come from one particular country – namely the United States.”
The U.S. Treasury Department emailed Marketplace a statement saying it “continues to have serious concerns about Canada’s proposed digital services tax and continues to oppose all tax measures that discriminate against U.S. businesses.”
Freeing Ourselves From The Clutches Of Big Tech
NOEMA: Right to repair and other efforts to liberate technology from monopolistic corporations is a precondition for winning many vital societal battles.
“The thicket that blocks competitive compatibility is woven out of software patents, exotic contract theories and trademark and cybersecurity laws. The thicket took decades to grow. Dismantling it will be the work of decades.”
Governments can — and should — have rules about interoperability in their procurement policies. They should require companies hoping to receive public money to supply the schematics, error codes, keys and other technical matter needed to maintain and improve the things they sell and provide to our public institutions.
FTC Proposes Strengthening Children’s Privacy Rule to Further Limit Companies’ Ability to Monetize Children’s Data
FTC: The Federal Trade Commission has proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule) that would place new restrictions on the use and disclosure of children’s personal information and further limit the ability of companies to condition access to services on monetizing children’s data. The proposal aims to shift the burden from parents to providers to ensure that digital services are safe and secure for children.
In a notice of proposed rulemaking, the FTC is seeking comment on proposed changes to the COPPA Rule aimed at addressing the evolving ways personal information is being collected, used, and disclosed, including to monetize children’s data, and clarifying and streamlining the rule. The COPPA Rule, which first went into effect in 2000, requires certain websites and other online services that collect personal information from children under the age of 13 to provide notice to parents and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from these children. The rule also limits the personal data that websites and other online services can collect from children, limits how long they can retain such data, and requires them to secure the data.
Democrats Must Not Repeat the Mistakes of Globalization – Ro Khanna (D), House of Representatives
New York Times: Like globalization, A.I. will undoubtedly bring benefits — tremendous benefits — to our economy, with higher productivity, personalized medicine and education and more efficient energy use. Generative A.I. has the potential to help those with fewer resources or experience quickly learn and develop new skills. The real challenge, though, is how to center the dignity and economic security of working-class Americans during the changes to come. And unlike the Industrial Revolution, which spanned half a century at least, the A.I. revolution is unfolding at lightning speed.
When it comes to A.I., the fault lines for the Democratic Party similarly run between business and labor, between donors and grass-roots activists and between those concerned foremost with our global competitiveness and those concerned with the economic well-being of the working class.
Technologies — our technologies — are meant to complement and enhance human initiative, not subordinate or exploit it. We must push for workers to have a decision-making role in how and when to adopt technologies, and we must insist on workers’ profiting from the implementation of these technologies. Our generational task is to ensure that A.I. is a tool for lessening the vast disparities of wealth and opportunity that plague us, not exacerbating them.
SOUTH AMERICA:
Letter to Latin American governments: No more digital trade negotiations!
InternetBolivia: We are facing a historic moment marked by technology. These are stormy times where we have seen how digitization has accelerated our integration, our communications, provided regional opportunities and fostered capabilities in the various sectors of our economies. But it has also brought negative consequences: fake news, tax evasion, monopolization of markets and indirect privatization of public services are just some of the many negative consequences we have seen in recent years. Latin America is at a crossroads in digital matters: how do we do as a region to enhance those positive things and mitigate the negative impacts of modern technologies whose future is uncertain and difficult to imagine?
Meanwhile, the debate on the regulation of artificial intelligence and the protection of personal data is growing in the world. These are urgent and necessary debates in a region that is still heterogeneously and disparately at very early stages in these debates: some countries in the region do not even have minimum privacy protections for citizens and consumers, while others, being major technology producers, are moving forward in non-binding ethical frameworks, taking steps in the right direction, but still insufficient.
The free trade program in digital matters must stop until we mature the regional debate regarding the regulation of our digital markets and our technological development of systems based on artificial intelligence, materializing in regulations that enhance the positive effects of digitality and mitigate those impacts that have negatively affected our peoples
Are cryptocurrencies currencies? Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador
Science: After El Salvador adopted the cryptocurrency bitcoin as legal tender, its government incentivized it with the Chivo Wallet app, a digital wallet backed by their central banking system. Despite major incentives, bitcoin was rarely adopted except among one privileged group: young, educated men with bank accounts. Compared with traditional banks, bitcoin offers improved privacy and transparency and rapid, inexpensive transactions. These are all features that economists assumed were desirable for Salvadorans because most are unbanked, need remittances, and can access Chivo Wallet because they usually own phones with Internet. However, Alvarez et al. found that Salvadorans’ preference for tangible cash and, ironically, privacy and transparency fears impeded bitcoin adoption. Unless populations are financially literate and trust virtual currencies, policies incentivizing their adoption may fail. —Ekeoma Uzogara
AFRICA:
Decoding Meta’s Infrastructural Turn in Africa: Access with Strings
BotPopuli: It is now passe to lament the ills of platform monopoly; with even casual observers being able to recite the many sins of Meta and Alphabet. However, while issues related to content dominate discourses in the Global North, Big Tech’s efforts to build massive internet on-ramps in the Global South have gone largely unnoticed.
In more recent years though, companies such as Meta and Alphabet have quietly abandoned the façade of philanthropy and PR-friendly schemes involving balloons and solar-powered drones in favor of continental-scale, hard engineering projects. Indeed, both companies are on the cusp of completing subsea internet cables that will encircle the African continent and massively increase the region’s internet capacity.
Given Meta’s lamentable record as a steward of our data and means of communication, and the potential that exists for multi-layered control over internet access for millions, it’s essential we subject such connectivity programs to critical scrutiny.
ASIA:
Digital trade fuels Asia-Pacific’s growth, but progress is uneven
UNCTAD: Digital trade holds massive promise for the Asia-Pacific region, but there’s still much to do to help vulnerable countries catch up, according to a new UN report launched on 6 December at UNCTAD eWeek 2023. The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2023-2024, produced by UNCTAD, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), highlights the region’s strong but uneven performance.
But just six economies accounted for 85% of Asia-Pacific’s digitally deliverable exports in 2022. The share for the region’s least developed countries (LDCs) was under 1%.
The report calls for making digital trade and investment policies more inclusive. These include measures to harmonize policy and regulations across borders and strengthen the capacities of LDCs in e-commerce and the digital economy.
It also underscores the need for a supportive regulatory environment, with clear laws to secure online transactions, protect consumer rights and fight against cybercrime.
Additionally, addressing privacy concerns and data security are key to building trust. Customs procedures are crucial for the smooth handling of digital goods.
