 Welcome to this session, an interactive session on Internet Without Borders. I'm Rick Sammons, a managing board member of the World Economic Forum. I simply want to say as a welcome to this session that this is not a one-off standalone conversation. It's a link to a process of dialogue as well as concrete work as one of our global challenge initiatives, this one on the future of the Internet. That initiative which launched formally last year is a multi-stakeholder effort to strengthen cooperation in multiple dimensions of this issue where you really do need, we all need, some degree of deeper cooperation and solution finding. Fragmentation emerged right at the beginning as one of the fundamental issues, challenges facing this field and the forum as part of that initiative is dedicated to trying to help strengthen dialogue, trust and identify areas of cooperation. So we look very much forward to this conversation as it will be an input into that process going forward. I would like to say that one of the pieces of work which will be released later this week is in fact, as far as we can tell, the first rigorous overview of the various dimensions by which fragmentation the Internet is playing out. The lead author, Professor William Drake, is with us in the front row over there. His co-authors were Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet, as well as German Professor Wolfgang Kleinwachter. With that, I'd like to turn it over to you, Stephen Adler, who is president and editor of Thomson Reuters. Great. Thank you very much and welcome everybody. I should point out that this session is on the record and it's also being, people are talking about it on Twitter, we certainly hope so, and you can follow along using the hashtag digital economy, one word. This would be quite a weird session if we didn't have the ability to follow along on Twitter. So I assume that most people here probably agree that an open and free Internet is a good thing, at least in theory, that it's critical to global growth and to greater economic equity. I like to quote Tim Berners-Lee, you always feel like you're on safe ground when you do and he's here this week. The way he put it is that the laws of the Internet should work like the laws of physics, with the web providing the same user experience to one user as to another wherever in the world. And indeed, what we've been talking about at this conference, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, interconnectedness seems to be particularly important as a driver of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And you could argue that a borderless Internet is really more essential than ever in this environment and that it shouldn't in some sense be non-negotiable. It's nothing, if not negotiable, and it's certainly under threat. The Internet is being fragmented, among other things, by technological overload and decay, vastly different capabilities in different parts of the world. Political pressure with some countries seeking more sovereignty over the web within their borders, as opposed to the multi-stakeholder model. Government censorship through blocking sites, restricting searches, instituting cyber attacks against sites, and commercial interests clearly have reasons to want the Internet to be fragmented in certain ways, either to control data, to charge different access rates, to different tiers of customers, or to segment access to services among territories. So a lot of things fragmenting the Internet, and I think one thing that's worth noting is many of them are intentional. People have interests in the fragmentation and they're not merely inadvertent, and therefore achieving an Internet without orders really involves resolving conflicting claims and conflicting demands and building a consensus among both public and private stakeholders, not just fixing things that might otherwise be broken. And therefore there's also limits to how much can be done, and I'm sure we'll talk about what are the edges of those limits today. This has consequences in the realm of free speech and descent, bridging the digital divide, enabling the free flow of commerce, and driving growth in this fourth industrial revolution. So there's really a tough battle, a tough challenge in the works. It's very much in progress. And today's panelists are especially in the thick of it. We have a very strong panel to talk about this today. Starting here is Andrew Sansep, who's Vice President and Commissioner for the Digital Single Market of the European Commission. So right smack in the middle of this. Jose Maria Alvarez-Piette, Chief Operating Officer of Telefonica. And Trondra Sikaran, also known as Chandra, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services. Brad Smith, who's President and Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft, and of course Penny Pritzker, US Secretary of Commerce and long time US business leader. So we'll get along with the conversation. I'll probably start with a couple of fairly general questions, and I assume we'll narrow into some of the particular issues that come up. But I guess I'm curious just to get it started to ask you, what are you most worried about? What keeps you up at night when you think about the issues of fragmentation and maybe start with Commissioner Ansi? I think in Europe, when people, they are thinking about fragmentation, then they are thinking about our European markets. We were able to create a single market in physical meaning, but the digital single market does not exist. Instead, to have a single market with more than 500 million healthy customers, we have 28 rarely small markets. This is not about fragmentation of the internet. More globally, talking about fragmentation of the internet, I think we have to deal with internet coronance issues. And in this field, I can President Fadi Sheikhad made a really good job promoting multistakeholder model of the internet coronance. Secondly, we have to set common rules in our continents and the worldwide in the United States and in Europe. We were able to agree in common net neutrality principles. And I hope the rest of the world will follow us in this field. Thirdly, I'm worried about data flows. One of our aims, according to digital single market strategy in Europe is to allow free data flows across the European Union. But we have to create an environment where we can allow free and safe data flows also between EU and the third countries. So I'm looking forward quite hopefully, I hope very soon we will be able to wrap up those negotiations about safe harbor and we will provide safe environment for free data flows between the European Union and the United States. And I saw the two of you talking for about five minutes back there, so I figured you were wrapping up the negotiations. And you'll reveal the result here, so that'll come at the end. I'm not one of those negotiators, but because of my understanding, we made really remarkable efforts and this safe harbor is something we cannot compare with the safe harbor we had in the 2000s. Okay, well, we'll definitely come back to safe harbor. Secretary Pritzker, what's most on your mind when you think of this issue of fragmentation? What concerns you the most and what has the highest stakes as far as you're concerned? Well, I think if you step back and you think about it, the digital economy for just the G20 alone is greater than about $4 trillion and it's growing in about 8% a year. So this is a really important part of our global economy. And we have data controls being put in place. We have data localization content controls, all of which are threatening a free and open Internet. And if you step back and think about it, this is not just about the large company, which obviously is able to have a global footprint, but this is also about the small and medium-sized business that is able to start up and, in essence, go global from almost the beginning if you take and that is very much threatened. And entrepreneurship innovation is a big part of what the Internet enables. And we're very much in the United States promoting a free and open Internet multi-stakeholder approach. We're trying to resolve this. It's absolutely imperative that we keep the Internet flowing so that global trade can continue. Brad, from a perspective of a big tech company, Microsoft in particular, what's your major focus on this issue? What are you most concerned about? Well, actually I think your opening comment captured it well. When the Internet was invented, there was this notion that it would be governed by the laws of physics rather than the laws of governments. Turned out the governments had a different idea. And it's not unreasonable for them to do so. Everything on the Internet has become so intertwined with everything in the real world that in the year 2016, I think it's important to step back. I don't think you can keep people safe in the real world unless you can keep them safe on the Internet. And I don't think you can keep people's rights protected in the real world unless you can protect their rights in the Internet. So how do we do that? Well, first we have to do it in a way that builds and even rebuilds trust among consumers around the world, not just in governments but in companies. We need the kind of transparency that will build trust. And we need to create laws and legal processes that will work for the Internet in the 21st century. And these are times going to require laws that are more similar. It's going to require a healthy respect for each other's jurisdiction. And it's, frankly, more than anything else, I think going to require new international legal processes that are designed from the start to work across borders. Great. Thanks. And we'll come back to those things. Chandra, feel free to talk about something else. But you've written about the importance of the Internet of Things in the future and the interconnectedness. Are you concerned that the fragmentation is going to make it much more difficult to have an effective governance and effective system for the Internet of Things? I want to make four points. The first one is, I believe, the future of the human race is very much tied to the future of the Internet. And Secretary Pritzker gave some numbers in terms of the economic opportunity. But if you really look at what the future of the Internet has to offer, it's not only a great economic opportunity, it is probably the only hope for job growth. And if you are not going to solve the Internet-based issues, we are in for a huge shock because we are moved from Internet of Information to Internet of People to Internet of Things. And everything is going to emit data. And already, there are enough statistics on how much data we are generating every single minute. If you are still not solving the problem related Internet of People, I think we will miss a huge opportunity, which the big data and all the Internet of Things technologies will provide for creating the future in terms of business models, jobs growth, economic growth, and so on and so forth. The more we delay, the more we are going to lose. The third point I want to make is each one of us almost are two individuals. We are citizen on the one hand. We are a netizen on the other hand. As a citizen, we abide by the law of the nation where we belong. As a netizen, we abide by the laws of the Internet. And they are slightly different. Internet is pretty much, we are already used to a pretty open and globally connected netizenship. Now, we are suddenly realizing the issues related to data privacy are so huge, we are trying to claw back. And then our freedom is trying to be controlled. I don't understand it because if you really look at a data privacy issue, it's the same whether you are a US citizen or an Indian or a European citizen. I don't think the issues are the same. I don't understand why different nations have to have different laws. I fully appreciate the need for data privacy. I fully appreciate all the protection that is required. But the problem should not be so complicated. We should really promote the free internet very quickly. We need to form some kind of basic framework or guideline or whatever it is so that we don't miss out on this opportunity. I think time is the essence. Thank you. So Jose, from the standpoint of a big telecom, which obviously has a significant commercial interest in how the internet is governed, what are you most concerned about as we look at this topic? Well, we have a huge list of concerns. But to try to summarize them, we all agree that the internet needs to be open, free, and neutral. There is no debate about that. But we need to also understand that the internet was designed or conceived 25 years ago in a different kind of world. Now the network is different. The network is mostly mobile. As we speak, mobile is exploding worldwide. The way we interact with internet keyboards has been replaced by screens, browsing is being replaced by apps. So the world is changing and technology is changing very rapidly. And that means that the behavior of people on internet is evolving and there is no longer an analogical life and a digital life. There is just one single life. And therefore rights and protections needs to be the same. Our major concern is that if we do nothing, we are headed into a very fragmented internet. But because of things that were not a concern 25 years ago, internet today is not neutral because if you conceive the network or the handsets as part of the network, handsets speak a proprietary language. We are building, we are heading into the economy of platforms. Platforms are being built with customers are captive. It's a feudal internet. Those are vassals because in exchange of your privacy, in exchange of your data, you can stay on the platform. And you can even build your own house on that platform. And you can spend your money on that platform. But if you want to move to another platform, there is no interoperability. There is interoperability of networks, but there is no interoperability of operating systems. You cannot port your digital life from one platform to the other. So our concern is that apart from economic interests or business interests is that if we do nothing, we are headed into a fragmented internet with feudal lords that on their domain manage the information in certain ways. Right. And so you're raising an issue that I'm sure we'll want to discuss, which is when you talk about the fragmentation of the internet and you talk about the rules, you're talking really about the rules that apply to what we traditionally call the internet with domain names. As you get into the world of apps, you're dealing in the world of digital interactivity. But in a situation where you can have kind of walled gardens that are cut off from the rules, I might as well come to that now since you brought it up. I mean, how do people feel about that? Is there a way in which the kinds of conversations that are going on involving the internet also apply to apps and how do apps figure into this conversation? You look at me, so I guess I'll answer. Brad. I would start with this. I think it actually, before going to apps, it should start with people's information. And I think that there are some important first principles and that are increasingly finding acceptance, whether it's in the context of the new European regulation or say new international standards like ISO 27018. And it comes down to who owns your data. I think people own their data. People should own their data. People who build platforms and apps should respect that this data belongs to people. It's why we've said we will process people's personal information only as they instruct us to do so. You raised the point, if it's mine, can I move it? If you can move your money from one bank to another, if you can move your phone number from one carrier to another, can you move your information from one provider to another? Look, I think either companies will create apps and services that enable that information to move in a reasonable way or governments will step in. I think we do best as an industry when we listen to views of different communities around the world. We pay attention to those views. And we take the kinds of responsible steps to meet people's needs. In some ways, we can tell everybody to keep their hands off that this will lead to fragmentation. But the truth is, the fastest way to get to fragmentation is to stop listening to what people want and need, because that's what forces governments to step in. I assume you would agree that app makers sometimes have a different commercial interest than a Microsoft or a telecom. And so you're dealing not just with trying to come together, but you're also dealing with pretty divergent commercial interests. Yeah, but absolutely. But look, I'm a veteran of the school of hard knocks. Microsoft participates in many different parts of this economy in terms of technology. We have apps. We have productivity apps. We have file formats. There were concerns and complaints a decade ago that the file formats didn't enable people to move the documents they had created in Microsoft Word to Google Docs or others. There was a standardization effort. There was a regulatory effort. Ultimately, we got the message. We moved, and now that kind of interoperability is possible. I'm sort of from the school that says, look, you either listen and you get the message, or you wait for somebody to hit you over the head, and that actually hurts. Okay, yeah, go ahead. I just like to support, Brad, is that we have to deal with data ownership issues. Until now, when we're talking about data, we were mainly talking about data protection. But data as a resource, as a commodity, we didn't pay on those issues so much attention. So in Europe, for example, in some countries, patients, our people, they own their personal health records. In some other member states, people, they are not able to even get copies of their personal health records. About what kind of free movement of patients in the European Union we can talk about when people, they are not able to get copies of their personal health records. In some countries, in Switzerland here, for example, people, they put their personal health records into foundation and they know that this foundation is selling those data to pharmaceutical companies. But they expect one lovely day, they will get something which will be really useful for them, or their children, or for your humanity. And I myself, I'm also ready to do that. But at first, we may have to deal with the data ownership issues. I absolutely agree with you. People, they have to own their data, in this meaning that they will have to have access to their data collected about them, and they have to get right also to delegate access to the data collected about them to the third person. So, and then we will get a lot of valuable apps. I'm not talking about medicine, I'm thinking about the energy issues. It's possible to earn or to save 100 billion years per year if we will be able to cut to those peaks and then blows, but once again, at first we have to deal with data ownership issues, and then we have to allow free data flows across the Europe, and as I said, across the world. So there are many fragmentation issues. I want to go to one of the, obviously the key ones, which is governance. The domain name system ICANN has been the manager of that. That's been, I guess, under contract with the Department of Commerce. It's a relationship with the US government, and that's been evolving, and there have been a lot of negotiations about exactly what the government is going to be. You know, I assume as most people know, there is some desire by some countries to have more national control as opposed to the broad multi-stakeholder control. Secretary Pritzker, where are we on those conversations, and what's the future of ICANN? Well, first of all, it's our strong position that the technical services that we provide now should be transitioned. We call it the IANA transition, and we've been working with ICANN on that process, and we very much are looking forward to a proposal that will be made to us, and to trying to institute that transition. We are firm believers in the multi-stakeholder process, and I would say, you know, the challenge here is this tension between governments and the multi-stakeholder and the individual, and not just on ICANN, but I'm talking more about the issue that, and then of course we have entities like businesses and app providers and operating system providers or platforms, et cetera, and it would be great to wave a magic wand and come up with one answer. What's the problem is not everybody shares the same set of principles about what ought to happen with data and who owns it, and how it ought to be managed. The United States has the position that it should be a multi-stakeholder process that manages the internet. Not every country agrees with that, and that's a fundamental tension that exists out there right now, and the ability to do the IANA transition will depend upon being able to satisfy that the United States that this will remain, the internet will remain governed by a multi-stakeholder process and not subject to what I call a hostile takeover. But individual countries could opt out and set up their own root service systems and you could have an Iranian internet, you could have a Chinese internet. It's technically able to happen. The question is, is that your fragment, one aspect of fragmentation that could occur. Any other thoughts on the transition of ICANN or? I think the underlying problem is not who is going to own it and whether the transition happens. It is fundamentally agreeing to those principles. We've got to force the issue in terms of what Brad said, data belongs to the individual. Second thing is how open it should be. Once you have put it in one app or one platform, you should be freely be able to move to another platform in the individual system. So like this, I think, what are the fundamental axioms and principles? We have to force an agreement on that. It doesn't matter after that who is controlling, et cetera. The reason we are not able to solve the problem is because there is disagreement in principles. So we are talking about creating nationwide implementations. Then you're going to complicate this year. Of course, governments do have some compelling interests in the internet here. You've got conflicting copyright laws, you've got conflicting laws on pornography, on gambling, who can come to one side. Another geo-blocking is partly about governments having different laws. How do you ultimately, and I know you're dealing with this in Europe, how do you ultimately reconcile the real differences and how different groups who gather as people have different values and how do you reconcile that when you look at governance of issues such as geo-blocking and not enabling people to either to move across country lines or having different rules? Commissioner? So once I said I hate geo-blocking and it was quite popular statements because I think we all experienced rerouting. So what does it mean for ordinary people? They are not selling those goods and services from the first place you visited, but they are sending you to another place and then they will deny from services at all or for say, look where your credit card is issued. No, no, those services, they are not for you, they are for our people. So what does it mean? If in some EU country, for example, you would like to buy a box of chocolate and they say that it's prohibited to eat those candies, for example, in Switzerland, you think those people, they are a little bit crazy. But in digital world, we say this is basis of our business model. Why we have to accept discrimination on basis of your nationality or where your credit card was issued on the 21st century in the European Union? So we will deal with those geo-blocking issues, but I agree there can be also justified geo-blocking. When countries, they have to protect their legal systems, then we can talk about justified geo-blocking. For example, if in one country, for example, this online gambling is allowed in another country, it's prohibited then geo-blocking to protect legal systems is acceptable, even according to my understanding, but geo-blocking caused by copyright restrictions. It's a huge problem, in Europe at least. We made our portability proposal in December already. We have to allow legal access to the legal about digital content to our people, even when they are traveling in some other EU countries. Today, we know that 35% of Europeans are spending at least 10 days during the year in another EU member states. And many of those people would like to get access to their legal about digital content, but because of copyright restrictions, they cannot. So, since 15th of June, 2017, we will abolish rooming surcharges in the European Union and more and more people in Europe would like to start to use their mobile devices, and then they will have choice. Either legal access to digital content or they will continue to use VPN and free downloads according to public opinion polls Today, 20% of internet users in the European Union are using VPN to get access to digital content. 68% of billbuyers said that they are using so-called free downloads. We had to create win-win situation where people, they can have legal access to digital content, they will pay for that as they are paying today for VPN, six, eight, 10 euros per month, 20 euros per three months, et cetera. But we have also remunerates, creators they have to get fair remuneration. And yeah, we have to deal with those issues in Europe, but I don't think this is a real issue in the European Union. In other continent, we can see how people they are facing similar challenges. Maybe we should just kind of hit the safe harbor dead on now so we can see what's going on because we do have an opportunity. So, I mean, the state of play European Court of Justice struck down the prior safe harbor rule that allowed the transfer of personal data of EU citizens to the US if they agreed to adequate privacy protections. There have been a series of negotiations since then to come up with a new safe harbor agreement. There was supposed to be a new agreement, at least based on what I've read as of January 31st. Turning to both of you, are you making progress and where exactly are you on it and when should we expect a resolution? Maybe I'll start. Let's put this in context. We've actually been working on a new safe harbor framework for over two years, the United States and the European Commission. So this is not a new endeavor just since the European Court of Justice decision. And I think that we've leaned forward to try and address the EC and the European Court of Justice concerns. And so we have a comprehensive offer that we're refining right now that creates what's called essential equivalents which is the standard that needs to be met in order for safe harbor to receive what's called an adequacy determination. That's kind of the bar that we have to hit. There's a couple of issues that are of real interest. The first is the national security issue. You know, what kind of information is available about activities done for national security and how do those affect privacy? And our intelligence community and law enforcement have detailed for the EC, the legal authorities and oversight that has been put in place, particularly post Snowden with the presidential directive. And so that includes privacy protections for citizens of all nations. And it very much aligns with the requirements of the European Court of Justice. The other big issue is the issue of how to address if a European citizen has a complaint about privacy. And we've taken that issue very seriously. It's a very important issue and one that we take privacy very seriously in the United States and we take the issue of addressing this very seriously. And we've developed multiple seven pathways for EU citizens to address their concerns about compliance. So there's, you know, and then we've developed significant also new frameworks and commitments from US agencies to provide enforcement and resolve these complaints using our FTC, which drives privacy now. But let's keep in mind something really fundamental. For the last 15 years, almost 4,500 companies from both sides of the Atlantic have benefited from safe harbor. In those 15 years, there have been four referrals from EU data protection agencies to our FTC for unresolved complaints about privacy and all of those got resolved. So we're at a point where the big issues I think are, it's time for us to act and to stand together and to demonstrate to companies and to the European Court of Justice and to all interested stakeholders that we've come up with in mind is that there's an annual review of the safe harbor that's now built in. So we have to recognize that all of these good folks are evolving technology probably faster than governments can react. But we've set up mechanisms to recognize that the landscape will change and that the solutions today will have to evolve. And so I think it's actually back to your first question, which is, you know, how do we get there and how do we begin to set up mechanisms and ecosystems? I think different parts of the world have to act and lead. And I think that the US and EU with safe harbor can lead on privacy recognizing the evolution that will occur by our innovators. I think that trade agreements is another mechanism for us to deal with this fragmentation and digital economy. And using those types of mechanisms, there will be groups of countries that will choose to lead. And then we'll see what happens. We'll see who's better off depending on the structures that they choose. I don't think we're unfortunately gonna get to one solution right out of the box. I just think that's not the way the world is working. Are there sticking points that you're concerned about in these negotiations? Yes, of course. Me too. I'm looking forward to the music and I'm confident we will be able to reach consensus. As we remember, we got the safe harbor in the year 2000 already and the idea was good to protect data for our citizens in the United States of America. But in the year 2013, we got this understanding that that safe harbor wasn't safe enough because of prism, snow, and et cetera. And already then, we made our 13 proposals and then we started to negotiate on basis of those proposals. In January 2014, President Barack Obama made a really remarkable speech where he stated that all the data, it doesn't matter the data of Europeans or non-Europeans have to be treated on equal basis in the United States. And I would like to say all those negotiations, they followed the same principle. And now, I think according to news, safe harbor, or how we will call this new safe harbor, rarely data of Europeans will be treated on equal terms with data collected about Americans in the United States. We cannot compare this safe harbor we will have, I hope we will have with this safe harbor we had in the year 2000. Now, there will be more transparency. We will set the institution of ombudsman, then distribute resolution mechanism, which is really important according to my understanding. It will be a process to make safe harbor even more safe because there will be a review, annual review. And yeah, I would like to say that we made progress and we have to wrap up those negotiations and we have to deliver and because time is running out, of course. It's so easy to ask for more. Americans, they would like to get more. Europeans, they would like to get more, but time is running out and we have to take care about our citizens, about our businesses. We have to allow those free and safe data flows also between our two continents. I hate to sound like a journalist, but it sounds like you're not quite there. If you say we, time is running out. When I said that according to my understanding, according to this new safe harbor, data for European citizens will be treated as States of Americans in the United States of American, then it means something. We really made efforts. So if there will be some kind of doubts, then this review clause, it makes sense. And of course, yeah, I asked for a bulletproof solution, but if it will be not bulletproof, then we can be absolutely sure the European Court is for court of justice will intervene once again. So this is a process. Any other comments on this? Yes. I would say speaking from the outside, not being privy to all the details, but thinking about this from a technology perspective, it's an issue that is both fraught with peril, but also ripe with opportunity. It's fraught with peril because we have 11 days and the transatlantic economy as a whole is dependent on a successful outcome. American companies employ 3.8 million people in the European Union. EU companies do $2 trillion worth of sales in the United States. These negotiations are too important to fail. But the opportunity is equally interesting and it's worth reflecting on it because there is a real opportunity here to resolve this in a way that advances trust in technology and each other's governments. On the surveillance issue, first of all, I very strongly believe that President Obama deserves a lot of credit for putting the United States on a path towards surveillance reform first in 2014 with more transparency. The US Congress ended bulk collection in 2015 and yet there is room for more transparency steps. And if the two governments can find a way to do that, that will benefit the economy and transparency and even trust in the United States. On the other side, and it may seem odd to hear a company say this, but if people in Europe are going to trust American companies, we need to be accountable. People will not trust institutions that are not accountable. Privacy is a fundamental human right. Rights need to have remedies. Remedies need to be real and effective. And if the FTC can and does act, that can give people confidence. And if the FTC doesn't act in a particular situation, I don't know that that means that there should be no role for local data protection authorities. On the other hand, I think what, not just the US tech sector but US companies large and small across the economy are looking for from Europe, is a measure of regulatory clarity and coherence. And I think we in the United States should give Europe some credit because in the context of the new general data protection regulation, there are new measures to create a consistency mechanism. That's a building block. And if a negotiation can lead to an outcome where American companies large and small will know who it is that they're accountable to, that would be a huge victory, I believe for the cause of commerce and privacy. And I believe that if these kinds of steps were to come together, I think the tech sector would speak loudly and clearly and publicly and supportively for both the United States government and the European Commission for solving this problem in a way that not just puts the crisis behind us but creates a less fragmented internet. So we haven't heard from anybody from a non-developed nation. So although you have been run a large multinational that take us through it a bit from your perspective. I think it is not only a US-European commission issue. It is an issue for the world. If you take India, it's the same issue. The platform could be known out of India. It could have access to US citizens data, European citizens data. In fact, funnily enough, that day when this judgment came, that afternoon Chancellor Merkel was in India and we had the joint CEO meeting between Germany and Prime Minister Modi. So Prime Minister Modi, Chancellor Merkel and all of us visiting there. So each of the sides were raising an issue. I raised the issue saying, you know, we don't have a safe harbor with Europe and all our clients need it, we need it and we have it with the United States. The United States has it with the European Union. We don't understand why we have it. And soon after that lunch, this news about the cancellation of the safe harbor came about. So it is a global issue. It's definitely an issue that has implications beyond European Union because the software platforms are platforms. Analytics is going to happen anywhere from the world. These platforms have got access to global data. We're almost ready to go to the audience but I just want to ask Jose a quick technology question because one of the ways the internet can be fragmented is if some people have a way better internet than other people and there's a lot of work being done on the 5G networks which will take us to another level. Could you give us any sense of where the work is being done, where we are in the 5G development? 5G is gonna be here somewhere between 2018 and 2020 and it's gonna- 2018 and 2020? And it's gonna imply a massive change because the major issue is not gonna be just the speed of access or significant jumping speed or even in capacity. It's gonna probably be ending with latency. And latency means that the rate of interaction between the internet of things is gonna be eliminated and therefore it's gonna be a real time thing. So if we are concerned about security in a world of a few smartphones, I mean, or some penetration of a smartphone and individual data, think about the world in the next five years in which all of our closers, all our glasses, all our cars, all our features, all our gas meter, water meter, electrical meters, microwaves, everything is gonna be connected to internet and it's gonna be generated information. So if we were concerned about personal information, think about your blood pressure, your mood, your travel patterns or your food. So my point is the following. We have discussed a little bit about who is the owner of the data. We should not waste much time on that. The owner is the customer. It is their data, it's his life. And therefore we need to think who is ready to present in front of the customer all the data that we have on them. Because it should be them deciding what to do with their data. So it should be them deciding what's the limit of the usage that is, and we can regulate or try to regulate. In my opinion, it should be same service, same rule. I am totally on for less regulation because I think we all should be treated the same. But in my personal opinion, this is going much faster than regulation. Customers are deciding. Ad blockers, as we speak, are literally booming, booming. And this is gonna be a massive change because all the algorithms that are being elaborated today are thought or designed for a continuous function. And the customer is gonna convert that into discrete functions. So in my opinion, I think we should go very fast because we will be building the networks. The customers are gonna be using those networks. And we are ready to put all the data that we have on our customers in front of them so they can act. In our opinion, they should be able to block the geolocalization. They should be able to block the signaling. They should be able to on and off. And it should be them running their own digital life as they run their own life. But you'd also say that 5G increases the urgency of getting some principles to solve some of these issues in advance. 4G is already there. But 5G is gonna make it even more urgent. I mean, I mean. Let's open it up to a broader conversation. And do we do microphones? Yeah. Okay, so over here. Thank you. This, can you hear me? This question is for Commissioner Ansep. So you referenced the Snowden documents as being one of the key, the revelations in those documents as being one of the key points that made you uncomfortable with the previous Safe Harbor Agreement and the European Court of Justice certainly referenced it as well. But one of the other revelations that was in those documents is what other European intelligence agencies are doing, which in some times far exceeds the NSA's capabilities and authorities. Yet I have heard nothing about the concern about the inner European data transfers to some of those countries. How do you address this inconsistency? Yes, but this is totally different issue. Not connected with the safe harbor, but of course, as I said already, some politicians, some people, they would like to ask much more from America than they are ready to provide themselves. So this is an issue, but we don't have cases talking about mass surveillance in the European Union. And the people in Europe, of course, they have to be absolutely sure that this national security exception is really used in very exceptional cases, not for mass surveillance. You have a question back here? Can't really see behind me, but go ahead. I very much sympathize with your perspective that the internet today consists of feudal communities with feudal lords and serfs without civil rights. And if you want like owning their data, and I think a key problem, if you want to give people their civil rights, is to know who they are. And the UN and the World Bank have a project to deploy electronic ideas worldwide by 2030. The question is, what do we do until then and what do we do when everyone has electronic ideas so that we can give them their rights? Well, it's, in our opinion, it's relatively easy to explain how to execute. We have the carriers, the telecom operations. We have a huge amount of data, much more data than any other company on our customers. But we are buying by law to protect this data. We are legally responsible for the custodian. We are the custodian of those data. The issue that we have is that, you know, data is like the oil of 21st century. If we do nothing, this oil is gonna be drilled and transferred somewhere to some platforms. It's gonna be refined and send it back for value to the customers who are the owners of those data. And that happens to be nothing as a counterpart. In our opinion, we need to put in front of the customer who is the owner of this data all the information that we have on them, all of that. And we are ready to do that. We are ready to tell them where they move around through geolocalization, how many, what's their pattern of behavior on the internet through signaling, what is their video appetites? I mean, because of the products and service platform like video machine to machine or e-health or financial services, we are ready to give that back to them because they are already paying us for that. It is their information. It is their oil. And they should be deciding to whom they want to transfer that oil to be refined and what's the price of that oil. And we can do that through the idea of the customer because we have the idea of the customer. So as leads on our side, and we have no issue at all of interconnecting all our information, all our platform with the platform on other telco. And therefore, if my customer moved from a telephonic to other platform, I wish they would not be doing that. But if for some reasons they will be willing to do that, they can bring their data with them. It's as simple as that. And it's around the idea of the customer. Well, they know much better than what we think because I mean, the advertising and the algorithm are evolving so rapidly that they know a lot. We might be knowing more because of the billing or the customer care or the video, whatever, but they know a lot. My point here is that as soon as the customer is gonna be acting on that information, the algorithms are gonna change because the flow of information is gonna not be continuous. It's gonna be discreet. And therefore, I want my customer to be on command of his data because the sooner they do that, the sooner they would start acting on that. And the sooner the ecosystem would balance. I want interoperability of operating system. I want interoperability of the digital life. I want same service, same role. I'm competing with WhatsApp for voice over IP. And WhatsApp is not even regulated. I'm not advocating for WhatsApp to be regulated, but then let's regulate me. I mean, same service, same role. Those are the kind of things that we are proposing because we think that's good for the customer who at the end of the day, nobody can hide on internet. And the customer is already acting through ad blocking and through moving around. So my view is that sovereignty, we need to give the citizen the sovereignty of the digital life. It's very easy. If I could, because I think it's an incredibly thought provoking question that is worth reflecting on. And I say this, not to comment on Facebook, which I think is a terrific and responsible company, but just go back to the way you framed the question. We live in a world that fundamentally is being driven by both economic globalization, but also a response where people in communities want to maintain their local culture and a degree of local control. The internet is a wonderful thing, but people don't want to lose control to what I might describe as sort of a new generation in the era of digital sovereigns that are accountable only to the laws of physics. That's not what people want. So then you have to ask, then to whom are those of us in the tech sector accountable? Well, once you ask that question, it becomes clear, we're accountable to governments and their laws, but governments exist around territories. And as soon as governments pass laws that differ from territory to territory, you create the risk of fragmentation. So fundamentally, I think what this whole topic is about and what much of the fourth industrial revolution topic is about is how to reconcile these competing themes. And ultimately, I think it requires that first of all, those of us who are in this sector and others really listen and figure out how to meet the needs of the world, even when people in different parts of the world define their needs in different ways. I think second, we really have to think through how we create laws that are designed for at least the second or third decade of this century, how we create laws and processes that cross borders, how we ensure, frankly, that governments respect each other's borders, but how data moves. Because without data moving amidst all of this, then the very economic impetus that is driving growth forward begins to be weighed down. Other thoughts? I think you silenced the crowd with your eloquence there. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Then I'll sum up. You know, good discussion around something where one knew from the beginning that you couldn't resolve the issues or even perhaps address all of them. But among the things I come away with is certainly a sense of urgency that the issues need to address. A sense that there's a preference for multi-stakeholder model to the extent that that can be done. That there's obviously a lot of money at stake and there's a lot of question of growth at stake. And I think there's also a question of, which we didn't get into in much detail, but there's a question of equity, economic equity involved too, because you certainly don't wanna leave out large portions of the world's population. Clearly, the stakes are high for the fourth industrial revolution. So we're kind of four and five of our big numbers. And get higher as you get into a 5G world where everything's moving faster and everything's even more interconnected and the notion that we wanna try to talk through and resolve as many of the issues now as we can because the need for it's just gonna accelerate and get really crazy perhaps as early as 2018 to 2020. I think I heard some optimism that we're heading in the right direction on some issues. I think I heard that we're almost there on safe harbor. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I heard that we're feeling optimistic and that there's progress being made there. And I think broadly there's optimism, I think, because I think people feel that the right thing to do is really kind of out there that despite the fact that there are some different interests that the economic growth and a sense of fulfilling the needs of people who use the internet really push towards a less fragmented internet as much as we can and rules that Chris crossed. But I think Brad's points are very well taken about the continuing conflict between the notion of the global internet and the real and legitimate interests of both individuals and individuals who organize themselves into countries and governments representing them. But I do come away with quite an optimistic sense that there's a lot of work being done in this area and there's a decent amount of commitment to making progress there. So I do wanna thank the panelists who are extraordinarily well-qualified to discuss this and for all of you for engaging in the conversation and for those of you who have participated in Twitter. And thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.