The best solutions to seemingly intractable problems often lie in pragmatism and embracing the art of what is possible.
Many business leaders believe this is the case for regulating the global digital economy. The fragmentation of digital trade rules and regulations is already a problem, one that figures to get bigger and more complicated in the near future.
Currently, there are three distinct approaches to regulating digital commerce:
- the complex and prescriptive matrix of rules in place in the European Union;
- the laissez-faire approach of the United States, which lacks federal laws on data privacy protection, digital content, and platform competition;
- China’s draconian approach, where freedom of expression and the flow of data are greatly restricted.
For the moment at least, the Chinese approach has been rejected by most democratic governments on the grounds that it stifles freedom of speech and expression. The debate has instead centred on finding common ground between the U.S. and EU regulatory models.
At a recent gathering of leaders from tech companies, governments, and international organizations (sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Wahba Initiative for Strategic Competition (WISC) of New York University’s Development Research Institute), there was general agreement on the importance of regulations for data protection and privacy. Such regulations build trust among consumers, companies, and governments. Likewise, most of those who attended shared the view that international cooperation was important in areas such as cybersecurity, fighting terrorism, and drug trafficking, as well as on the need for export controls of the most strategically sensitive technologies.
But a deeper dive into how this should be done and who should do it reveals the depth of the problem in overcoming digital fragmentation.
Download the report to read the full summary of discussions here.
