Documents Internet 427 results

"From East to West, the economies of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are not taking full advantage of the internet to foster economic growth and job creation. The residents of Central Asia and the South Caucasus pay some of the highest prices in the world for internet connections that are slow and unreliable. In contrast, Europe enjoys some of the world's fastest and affordable internet services. However, its firms and individuals are not fully exploiting the internet to achieve higher productivity growth as well as more and better jobs. Reaping Digital Dividends investigates the barriers that are holding back the broader adoption of the internet in ECA. The report identifies the main bottlenecks and provides policy recommendations tailored to economies at varying levels of digital development. It concludes that policies to increase internet access are necessary but not sufficient. Policies to foster competition, international trade and skills supply, as well as adapting regulations to the changing business environment and labor markets, will also be necessary. In other words, Reaping Digital Dividends not only requires better connectivity, but also complementary factors that allow governments, firms and individuals to make the most out of it."

"This paper presents some of the key insights from the second wave of the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey (ETUI IPWS) conducted in 14 member states of the European Union (EU) in Spring 2021. The use of standard probability sampling allows us to estimate the proportion of internet and platform workers, and to identify their characteristics, in a way that is generalisable to the working age population. We found the prevalence of internet and platform work to be relatively similar in the analysed countries, suggesting a uniform evolution of this type of work across the EU. In particular, 17 per cent of the working age population did some internet work in the past year, 4.3 per cent did platform work and 1.1 per cent can be classified as ‘main platform workers'; that is, working 20 hours or more per week or earning more than 50 per cent of their income through platforms. Internet and platform workers differ from the offline workforce in several ways. They tend to be somewhat younger but are far from constituting a student workforce. They are better educated than those who have never done internet work and this is particularly the case for higher skill professional work. Internet work seems mainly to complement offline precarious work and serves as an extra source of income for those on less stable contracts."

"The next era of the internet is coming. The metaverse is an immersive, interoperable and synchronous digital world that will change how we interact, work and play.

In May 2022, the World Economic Forum launched the Defining and Building the Metaverse Initiative, whose goal is to bring together major stakeholders from academia, civil society, government and business to advance consensus and create a metaverse that is economically viable, interoperable, safe, equitable and inclusive. The initiative is divided into two workstreams: governance and economic and social value creation.

The governance track has produced its first report in the series titled Interoperability in the Metaverse, with key messages on the opportunities and challenges of metaverse interoperability. This paper, written by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture, will concentrate on providing topical guidance that will empower stakeholders to lead responsibly within the metaverse while mitigating potential socioeconomic harms.

The World Economic Forum has assembled a global, multi-sector working group of over 150 experts to co-design and guide this initiative. The hope is that this will lead to cross-sector global cooperation and the creation of a human-first metaverse. The metaverse has the potential to be a game-changer, but it must be developed in a way that is inclusive, equitable and safe for everyone."

"The metaverse is expected to reach a value of $1 trillion in the next three years, driven by rapid uptake and technologies like generative AI.

This report is published under the Defining and Building the Metaverse Initiative, whose goal is to bring together major stakeholders from academia, civil society, government and business to advance consensus and create a metaverse that is economically viable, interoperable, safe, equitable and inclusive. The initiative is divided into two workstreams: governance and economic and social value creation.

In this report, the governance workstream emphasizes the need for worldwide collaboration among various stakeholders, including academics, regulators, policy-makers and design teams, to nurture understanding of the metaverse and establish protective measures. The paper highlights the importance of privacy, responsible data handling and inclusive design. It encourages stakeholders to start discussions about the ethical navigation of the metaverse.

An accompanying release from the social value creation workstream presents a holistic understanding of the implications of metaverse adoption on individuals, economies and societies."

"Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, people has changed the way they work, learn and socialize. As result, it is important to identify the pre-existing digital gaps to implement the European Union digitalization strategy. This study aims to identify typologies of internet use in the 28 European Union (EU) countries (at the time of the survey), based on the characteristics of the users and their internet usage patterns. A two-level latent class analysis was applied. At the first level, individuals within each country were grouped according to their characteristics of internet use; and, simultaneously, at the second level, countries were grouped based on the similar structure of individual segments. Using data from Eurobarometer, results show that internet use in the EU digital market is not homogeneous. The European Commission should take these pre-existing gaps into account in the EU digitalization strategy."

"Independent sellers and the economy under Amazon's monopoly power

This research reveals the immense market power of Amazon in Europe and the revenue it derives from it. In most of Europe's biggest economies, Amazon is the main route for independent businesses to access online shoppers. Amazon's dominance allows the company to get away with extractive and exploitative treatment of sellers on its platform.

By analysing Amazon's corporate structure in Europe, its financial reports, and the findings of competition investigations, SOMO found that:

In 2022, Amazon raked in €23.5 billion in listing and logistics fees from independent sellers in Europe. This was more than triple the €7.6 billion in 2017.
To this, Amazon added an estimated €2.75 billion in advertising revenue from independent sellers in 2021. Since 2017, Amazon's overall European advertising revenue has grown 17-fold.
Altogether, in 2021 Amazon's revenue from European sellers amounted to €24.95 billion. Amazon's European marketplace is so large, if it were spun off into a separate company, the new firm would immediately become Europe's third-biggest tech company by revenue.
In this period, Amazon has also continuously increased the price of logistics services. The increases varied, but they could be as high as more than double in some categories."

"L'enseignement et la formation à distance ont connu un fort développement avec la crise du Covid-19. Depuis la fin de cette dernière, le présentiel est redevenu la règle et le distanciel l'exception. Les usages du distanciel en matière d'enseignement et de recherche, ont-ils véritablement disparu ? En pratique, n'en reste-t-il pas des traces dans la manière dont les EC exercent leur métier ? S'appuyant sur les contributions de deux collègues, cette controverse ambitionne d'interroger les pratiques et les points de vue d'universitaires sur le recours au télé-enseignement, à la fois au regard de leurs conceptions du métier, du sens qu'ils lui confèrent et du rapport qu'ils ont à la transmission des savoirs, mais aussi à partir de la façon dont chacun·e a pu vivre cette situation de crise sanitaire."

"The metaverse is projected to amass a staggering value of $1 trillion over the next three years, indicating rapid adoption and acceleration through technologies such as generative AI.

This report is published under the Defining and Building the Metaverse Initiative, whose goal is to bring together major stakeholders from academia, civil society, government and business to advance consensus and create a metaverse that is economically viable, interoperable, safe, equitable and inclusive. The initiative is divided into two workstreams: governance and economic and social value creation.

In this report, the social value creation workstream presents a holistic understanding of the implications of metaverse adoption on individuals, across the dimensions of access and adoption, psychological and physical well-being, DEI, sustainability and economic empowerment. It encourages an international dialogue for strategic development and regulatory guidance.

An accompanying release from the governance workstream focuses on metaverse privacy and safety, striving for a metaverse rooted in human-first principles.

Achieving an economically viable, equitable and socially conscious metaverse requires careful consideration of human rights, equality and sustainability. By incorporating these values into the design and development of the metaverse, we can create a digital realm that empowers all individuals, ensures equal opportunities, embraces diversity and safeguards the well-being of its users."

"This paper exploits variations in the timing of telecommunications reforms across Europe to analyze the relationship between the rise of alternative work arrangements and the emergence of the Internet. The paper evaluates whether sectors that are technologically more dependent on information and communications technologies experienced disproportionately larger changes in their employment outcomes after telecommunications reforms were introduced. The main results point to a disproportionate increase in total employment, part-time work, and home-based work among information and communications technologies–intensive sectors after the implementation of telecommunications reforms. The analysis does not find a link between the incidence of temporary employment, self-employment, second job holding, and telecommunications reforms. The main results are robust to several specifications."