The Internet enables countless innovations that transform markets and communities, changing the way we hail a ride, order food, stay in touch with our family, access information, and so much more. This session highlights innovations that make online markets and communities more efficient, inclusive, responsible and trusted. We begin with lightning talks with successful innovators who will describe their companies and obstacles and barriers they face. These will be followed by a panel of experts who will discuss optimizing online markets and communities that work better for us all.

The Internet enables countless innovations that transform markets and communities, changing the way we hail a ride, order food, stay in touch with our family, access information, and so much more. This session highlights innovations that make online markets and communities more efficient, inclusive, responsible and trusted. We begin with lightning talks with successful innovators who will describe their companies and obstacles and barriers they face. These will be followed by a panel of experts who will discuss optimizing online markets and communities that work better for us all.

27 years after Pete Steiner’s famous cartoon in the New Yorker, we’re still struggling to figure out who is a “dog on the Internet.” Identity provides the attack vector for most major breaches and each year leads to billions of dollars in cyber crime and millions of identity theft victims. The events of the last year – where the impacts of inadequate identity infrastructure have only been exacerbated with the elimination of many in-person transactions – suggests it would be a good time to revisit the state of online identity, and the roles that both government and the private sector might play in identity solutions that can deliver a more secure, trusted, and inclusive Internet.

We have to move to a proactive security posture to harden the internet.  There are security communities in place, but there is a gap between communities that is often closed in reaction to a threat event.  We need to have that gathering of skills from across industry and government(s) to influence the supply chain to build interoperable secure services, software and components.

Interoperability of the functional Internet is driven by three primary disciplines: policy, technology, and intelligence. While each is mature in its own right, the collaboration between any two and among the three currently leaves potential for improved cooperation where the disciplines intersect.  This panel discussion will explore the gaps in interoperability and how to ensure more interoperability, collaboration, and cooperation in addressing security concerns and threats in the converging supply chains.

Across the globe, governments are exploring policy and technical approaches to securing the Internet of Things (IoT). Learn how a coalition of industry groups is working with NIST and other government partners to improve results and raise expectations for security in IoT products and deployment, as well as promote policy harmonization internationally.

Few policy issues have seen the sort of meteoric rise in attention that antitrust has received over the past several years. Driven by the growing importance of digital markets and online platforms, antitrust has moved to the forefront of our modern political landscape. Perhaps not surprisingly, various reform proposals have started to emerge from both sides of the political spectrum. Advocates of reform argue that the United States’ current approach to competition policy is ill-equipped to deal with the problems posed by a twenty-first century, digital economy and that a new approach is needed to reign in the anticompetitive conduct engaged in by the dominant firms. On the other hand, skeptics of reform argue that our long-standing approach to antitrust enforcement is robust enough to handle these problems effectively and that any proposals for reform should be narrowly tailored to the specific issues they are trying to address. This panel will be an in-depth discussion surrounding the United States’ unique approach to antitrust law as well as several of the reform proposals that are currently under consideration. It will also highlight some of the finer points of the current debate surrounding antitrust reform and the impact that reform is likely to have on various sectors of the economy.

This session will examine the political forces and drivers that could cause fragmentation of the Web and the Cloud–both within the United States and worldwide. Speakers will share examples of how such fragmentation could be enforced (through firewalls, filters, real-name ID requirements, new laws for platforms, data localization requirements, and criminalization of certain technologies or business practices). To illustrate how this could happen, a series of scenarios have been developed that reflect how governments might respond to: (1) cyber attacks, (2) growing concerns about online privacy and surveillance, (3) worries about “foreign” content and apps, and (4) abuse of the Internet for criminal activities and terrorism. Panelists will also describe ways to address these concerns without partitioning the Internet or imposing a patchwork of different national regulations on the global Internet.