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Are you ready for America’s data protection laws?

October 13, 2019 Big Data

If your company is still grappling with Europe’s data protection laws, then you’ll want to step up your game. You’ll soon have American data protection laws to deal with, too. California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) goes into effect January 1, 2020 — that’s less than 3 months away. And additional American legislation is wending its way through various state houses in the United States, starting with New York (SHIELD Act).

Regardless of where your company is based, if you serve customers who live in California and New York, you must be compliant or face fines.

Since Europe rolled out GDPR, its landmark data privacy rules, 18 months ago, the online industry, despite having two years to prepare, has been hit with fine after fine for violations. During GDPR’s first year, 90,000+ businesses voluntarily reported breaches as they struggled to attain compliance. This was topped with 145,000+ consumer complaints. Like most legislation, ignorance of the law is no excuse — and likewise, the offender’s intent provides no safe harbor. Regulators pay no heed to whether a breach is accidental or the result of outright negligence. They do, however, levy greater fines for obvious, deliberate, or willful flaunting of the law. And EU regulators have famously made an example of some well-known companies.

In January 2019, Google paid a €50 million fine to French authorities for its lack of transparency in the collection and use of personal data for ad targeting. A few months earlier, a Portuguese hospital paid €400,000 for its poor patient record control practices. (For convenience, systems administrators created nearly 1,000 doctor-level access accounts. This allowed almost 1,000 user accounts to have unrestricted access to patient data when there were fewer than 300 actual doctors on staff.) A Danish taxi company was fined 1.2 million kroner after it was discovered they had been hoarding more than 9 million customer records containing personally identifiable information, long after these were required for business purposes. This was in contravention of the GDPR’s requirement to delete customer records when no longer required. And to the cheers of millions, Polish authorities pounced on a spamming operation in their country that scraped email addresses from public web pages and aggregated these for sending unsolicited commercial email. 12,000 recipients from a 90,000-strong distribution list complained, resulting in a €220,000 fine.

This list is far from exhaustive. An online GDPR enforcement tracker is attempting to capture all of the abuses reported by European authorities under the new legislation, including a pending €204 million fine against British Airways for a compromise involving 500,000 of its customers’ payment information.

Comparing the GDPR and CCPA: Some highlights

There are some key differences between the CCPA and GDPR. Broadly, the CCPA is less prescriptive about acceptable practices than GDPR, and even in the case of a reported infraction, the per-incident fine is insignificant unless a very large number of users report the problem.

Minimum standard for being on the CCPA radar. Whereas the GDPR essentially has no minimum criteria for applicability, the CCPA will likely not govern your activity if your revenue is under $ 25 million and you’re not in the business of transacting the personal data of more than 50,000 users — even if you have a breach. But if you do meet the minimum standard, your service gets compromised, and user data to is breached, CCPA bites down significantly harder than GDPR.

Extent of fines. GDPR has caps in place to ensure that fines do not exceed a significant portion of an offender’s revenue, but the only limit to the fines that could be levied against a CCPA offender is the number of users affected. The CCPA sets out a per user fine of $ 100 – $ 750 or actual damages (whichever is larger) for even an unintentional breach, so a smallish web service experiencing a breach of 1 million user accounts could easily be fined out of existence.

User opt-out vs. opt-in. Under CCPA, users must opt out from information sharing with third-parties, whereas GDPR demands that users explicitly opt-in. In more general terms, the CCPA is more lenient (though it emphasises different attributes) around proactive disclosure and handling of minors. Speaking broadly, if your service is GDPR compliant, your practices will generally meet or exceed the expectations of CCPA.

Less than half of companies appear ready

The extraterritoriality of GDPR means that if your business serves European customers, you’re obligated to meet this legislation’s stringent requirements, regardless of where your company is located. Similarly, if you’re operating in or serving customers in any way in the United States, the New York and California-mandated protections will apply to you and your customers.

According to an August 2019 IAPP and OneTrust survey of mostly US businesses (of all sizes), while 74 percent of survey respondents believe their employer needs to comply with California’s upcoming privacy rules, only around 2 percentsaid their companies are already fully prepared for it. Despite the growing havoc wreaked by GDPR, only 47 percent of survey respondents are expecting to be prepared for CCPA by the January 1 deadline. This is particularly true for organizations who are still not yet GDPR compliant. If your company isn’t ready, then it’s time to get serious. As GDPR has demonstrated, even a small, localized misjudgment can have huge consequences.

Above: Survey question: Approximately when do you expect your organization to be in full compliance with the CCPA? (Results are show for 2 versions of the IAPP/OneTrust survey, one conducted in April and the most recent in August.)

Even if you don’t think either of these laws applies to your business today, it makes sense to apply their standards anyway. Non-applicability under the law does not exempt an organization from liability against civil suits in the event of a breach or compromised standards. Both these, and pending legislation around across the US and around the world, set a standard that judges may look at when considering cases (as yet untested under these laws) directly between companies and affected customers. And at the end of the day, protecting customers ultimately protects the trust in and reputation of your business and your brand — things that could have a higher value than potential fines now or down the road.

Rakesh Soni is the Co-Founder and CEO of CIAM service provider LoginRadius.

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No Time Like the Present to Get Up to Speed on Sales Tax Laws

December 14, 2018 CRM News and Info

Americans are used to hearing the refrain, “We pay the sales tax,” from mattress sellers and car dealerships during big sales weekends. The phrase, “You pay the sales tax,” however, is something we’re all going to become a lot more familiar with in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair.

That’s because the Wayfair decision reverses precedent set by 1967’s National Bellas Hess v. Illinois and upheld in 1992’s Quill v. North Dakota, in which the court ruled that states could require companies to collect sales tax only if they had “sufficient physical presence” in the state.

In South Dakota v.Wayfair, however, the court ruled that making physical presence the minimum standard is “unsound and incorrect.” The result is that states now can require businesses to collect sales taxes if they meet the lower standard of “economic nexus” in the state — a condition state legislatures get to define on their own.

Collateral Damage

This is a big win for state governments, whose desire to overturn Quill has intensified in recent years due to the rise of e-commerce and the billions of dollars in taxes that go uncollected every year. (Residents in states with sales tax are supposed to file a use tax return with items purchased outside the state, but most do not). By requiring remote sellers to collect sales tax, states are expecting to see a huge increase in the sales tax revenue, especially this holiday season.

Unfortunately, the battle to recover this tax base also is likely to result in significant collateral damage in the form of the burden it places on e-commerce businesses. Many small and medium-sized e-commerce companies run on thin margins and have few resources to devote to ensuring they collect the appropriate amount of sales tax on each order. Indeed, the reason the court decided in the past not to require businesses to collect sales taxes on orders sent across state lines was that they acknowledged the serious administrative burden associated with this task.

Economists can debate the macro effects of the decision: Will this lead to residents of states with complex sates tax structures being underserved? Will it lead to lower competition because of the additional administrative costs needed to start or operate an e-commerce business? However, what business owners want to know is how this will affect their operations and profitability.

Triggering Nexus

The first thing companies should know is that you don’t need to conduct a lot of business in a state to trigger economic nexus there. In South Dakota, the physical presence condition remains, but it is compounded by an economic nexus rule that says if you have US$ 100,000 worth of sales, or more than 200 transactions involving customers in the state during the current or previous calendar year, then you must collect sales tax on all transactions with customers in that state.

This type of safe harbor threshold quickly is becoming the norm, given that South Dakota’s definition is serving as a model for the dozens of other states that have passed or are in the process of passing similar laws.

Worse, companies have been given extremely short timetables to comply. The decision came in June, but many economic nexus laws are already in effect, and more will go into effect early next year. Many businesses, having other, more immediate worries, still aren’t sure even where to start. While there are technology solutions out there, they take time and expertise to implement, which many small and medium-sized businesses just don’t have.

Impact on SaaS

The impact of Wayfair largely has been on e-commerce, but that doesn’t mean e-commerce businesses are the only ones that need to evaluate the effect of the new economic nexus laws. Some states require companies that sell intangible goods over the Internet, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), to collect sales tax where they have an economic nexus.

Now that states are making it easier for taxpayers to trigger sales tax nexus in their state, SaaS, cloud computing and other service-based businesses that never have had to worry about sales tax in the past (because the state in which they physically are located doesn’t tax their products) may already be in noncompliance, without even knowing it.

The aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision certainly creates a unique situation calling for today’s businesses to immediately address sales/use tax issues created by hastily drafted reactionary legislation and interpretations establishing economic nexus thresholds with effective dates in the second half of 2018 and early 2019.

Reasoned analysis and decisions are needed, as it does not appear that the economic nexus standards for sales/use tax collection responsibilities are going away any time soon. The proper decision for each business may vary widely, from not doing anything at the moment to registering in all sales/use jurisdictions as soon as possible, or somewhere in between.

No matter the final decision, businesses should be resigned to devoting in-house resources or hiring outside resources to address the impact of the current evolution in the world of sales and use taxes.

On the positive side, the need for additional resources may be temporary if an efficient sales/use tax collection and remittance system can be put into place effectively. For today’s current situation, businesses may be well suited to hire a third-party to notify them when new obligations are created, and to explain what actions are needed. It may be unrealistic for small to medium sized businesses with limited resources to track changes on their own.

Pursuing Compliance

Once a business accepts the fact that sales tax collection is a business obligation that is not going away soon, and that missteps have the potential to bankrupt an otherwise successful business down the road, an easily overlooked factor in the cost/benefit analysis is who will likely pay the tax due if sellers do not collect tax at the time of sale from the buyer.

Many sellers may not fully realize that their future audit assessments might have to come out of operating funds of the business — or more dramatically, out of the pocket of the individual owners or officers of the business.

Instead of looking at sales tax as a payment between a business and the state imposing the tax, sales and use taxes in today’s context are more properly viewed as a decision between the seller and the buyer. Either the buyer pays the tax at the time of sale, where allowed, or the business likely has to pay the tax at the conclusion of an audit, which may take place up to three years later when the original purchaser cannot be contacted to pay the tax due.

However, the daunting task of complying with state and local sales/use tax obligations in 45 states and the District of Columbia may not be as intimidating as a business owner might think, with today’s technology.

Sales/use tax compliance is certainly not as simple as downloading an app to your smartphone, but, by the same token, businesses with a repetitive, uncomplicated business process and product line may be able to automate the preparation of sales tax returns and the remittance of tax almost to a point where returns can be produced with a “push of the button” for every filing period.

Electronic filing and electronic payments also may be reduced to a data input process that can be accomplished in a low-cost manner.

With additional registration requirements created by new economic nexus standards for sales/use taxes on the horizon, business also must take the next step, and determine what other registrations are triggered automatically when registering for sale/use tax purposes. Some states make registration with the Secretary of State a prerequisite to get a valid sales/use tax permit.

Secretary of State registration usually requires the presence of an in-state registered agent and additional registration fees for the business, on top of any costs to collect sales/use taxes due.

Sales tax registration does not automatically require the filing of income tax returns, as income tax nexus standards are independent of sales/use tax standards. It is possible that sales/use tax filings are required under economic nexus laws, but that state income tax filings are not.

States may however, make inquiries of the new businesses registering for sales/use taxes purposes to make an accurate determination of the new businesses’ income tax filing obligation. Businesses need to fully understand the specifics of their nexus-generating activities, and the questions they are being asked that will determine whether income tax return filings are also due.

Even though Wayfair is a sales/use tax case, states also are closely examining the Supreme Court’s analysis to determine if new interpretations of law are possible under the Wayfair rationale that could increase income tax payments or other revenue streams into the state.

Although economic nexus has been the focal point for many businesses since the Wayfair decision in June, businesses cannot overlook the other laws recently passed by states to collect the sales/use tax on sales by remote sellers that otherwise do not have nexus with the state.

Marketplace Nexus, Reporting Obligation

Marketplace Nexus laws establish registration and collection obligations on third-parties that provide the virtual e-commerce marketplace and key services for remote sellers to execute sales.

Amazon and eBay are popular marketplace sellers, and they both have started or will start collecting and remitting sales/use tax on some states’ transactions executed in their marketplaces established for their sellers. Businesses may have to distinguish sales executed through their marketplaces from their direct online sales, so they can collect and remit applicable sales properly, and use taxes themselves on their direct online sales.

When physical presence was still the standard, Reporting Obligation laws were passed requiring non-nexus remote sellers to notify buyers on their invoices of their use tax obligations for non-taxable purchases they made.

Remote sellers also may be required to send all in-state purchaser information to states, so states can contact in-state purchasers directly to collect the use tax due. Colorado was the first state to pass Reporting Obligation laws, and approximately 13 other states have such laws on their books. These requirements may take as much effort for compliance as the actual collection and remittance of sales and use taxes due.

Even in states without economic nexus legislation, like California, businesses with no substantial physical presence are not necessarily free from sales/use tax collection obligations, because many states have broad “doing business” statutes that could be interpreted as creating sales/use tax nexus for a remote seller.

Such laws state that when “doing business” in a state, the requisite nexus is established to enforce the obligation to collect sales and use taxes. The requisite level of “doing business” is very subjective and difficult to anticipate in some situations.

Thus, a new, aggressive interpretation that a remote seller is “doing business” in a state may be preferred by states to establish sales tax nexus in lieu of trying to pass economic nexus laws in tax-adverse legislatures now that “substantial physical presence” is no longer the overriding standard.

Much remains to be seen in the near future for the post-Wayfair sale tax world, but one thing is certain, businesses should educate themselves about all of the possible scenarios, so they can decide what actions to take and when they should be taken. What used to be a relatively easy decision to make is now anything but.

John E. Hayashi is a Managing Director, Tax at
BPM and a leader of the firm’s SALT Group. With more than 26 years of SALT experience, John specializes in multistate sales and use taxes.

Carolyn Cotter is a Corporate Tax Manager at BPM, and co-lead of the firm’s SALT group. She has eight years of experience in public accounting, providing income tax compliance and consulting services to corporations of all sizes, primarily in the high technology and life science industries.

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Yahoo, ACLU press US feds to disclose email snooping orders, surveillance laws

October 20, 2016 DWH News and Info

credyahoo Yahoo, ACLU press US feds to disclose email snooping orders, surveillance laws Yahoo

Yahoo has asked the US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to declassify a surveillance demand the company received which resulted in a special program being set up to monitor customer emails for certain keywords.

The program, which operated in early 2015, forced Yahoo to build a tool which automatically scanned Yahoo Mail user messages for key words and phrases — a general order from either the NSA or FBI, rather than a targeted spying mission on particular users.

According to Reuters sources, Yahoo ran the software secretly before the firm’s engineers and security teams discovered the tool. Believing that the software was the work of external cyberattackers, they took the software down.

This secret data collection and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision not to appeal the order have thrown the company into a quagmire of criticism, of which Yahoo is unable to respond “in detail” due to the order, according to a letter sent by Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell to Clapper, which has now been posted online.

The letter (.PDF), revealed on Wednesday, asks Clapper to release the Yahoo order from classified status. The request reads:

“We urge your office to consider the following actions to provide clarity on the matter; (i) to confirm if such an order, as described in these media reports, was issued; (ii) declassify in whole or in part such order, if it exists; and (iii) make a sufficiently detailed public and contextual comment to clarify the alleged facts and circumstances.”

Yahoo previously called Reuter’s report “misleading” and denied the email scanning tool was present on the company’s systems, but declined to comment further. If Clapper agrees to Yahoo’s request, however, the tech giant will be at greater liberty to explain itself.

The letter comes as Yahoo deals with the aftermath of revelations concerning a security breach which took place in 2014, leading to the theft of at least 500 million user accounts.

With the impending sale of Yahoo to Verizon for $ 4.8 billion and both the data breach and the exposure of the US government’s order hanging over its head, Yahoo chose not to conduct the traditional investor relations call after the firm’s Q3 2016 earnings.

Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a motion (.PDF) in the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asking judges not only to release Yahoo’s spying order, but over 20 additional rulings made over the last 10 years.

These rulings, based on the court’s opinion, affect everything from how the US government uses malware, bulk data collection and the constant battle between technology firms and law enforcement when it comes to encryption standards and how far vendors must go to assist the police in accessing mobile devices. As these court opinions are secret, there is no right of appeal and they are kept out of the public arena — despite their far-reaching implications.

In a post-Snowden era, it seems that tolerance for such practices and a lack of transparency is wearing thin.

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Trumps Violated Immigration Laws

August 8, 2016 Humor

There is strong evidence that both Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump violated immigration laws.

Let’s start with Melania. There are lots of holes in her story of how she came to the US. She says she arrived in 1996 on a short-term visa, which would have made it illegal for her to work here. But a recently published set of nude photos of the would-be first lady were shot in the US in 1995. That would make her an undocumented worker and an illegal alien. You know, the kind that Trump is campaigning against. Or does the law not apply to his wife?

Trump has said “These are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse.” And yet, Trump himself abused this program at one of his companies, and he even ripped off the workers he brought into the country by refusing to pay them the salary they were promised in their contract. It is clear that the whole reason he was bringing in foreign workers was so that he could pay them less, which is illegal. In some cases he paid them pennies on the dollar.

His whole business career is filled with examples of him violating the law and cheating people. Why would anyone think he would be any different as president?

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The 18 Laws for Winning with Data, Speed and Mobility

November 24, 2015 Mobile and Cloud

I have given nine presentations in the past 10 days on mobile and data strategies. I have met with companies in the energy, media, insurance and banking industries. I have brainstormed and discussed these laws for winning with data, speed and mobility, and they have held up. In the age of mobile me, where information is the prize, a new set of laws and strategies are required to win. In my new report, “Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me,” I discuss many of these laws and how they are applied in mobile apps and mobile commerce.

Data is the modern commercial battlefield.
Information dominance is the strategic goal.
Real-time operations and tempos are the targets.
Advantages in speed, analytics, business operational tempos determine the winners.
Real-time business speed is enabled by advances in mobile information, sensors and wireless communications.
Competition is now focused on optimizing information logistics systems (the systems involved in maximizing information advantages).
Businesses that can “understand and act with speed” dominate those which are slower.
In order to win or gain superiority over competitors in the age of information, you must operate information logistics systems at a faster tempo, and get inside your competitor’s decision curves. (Adapted from John Boyd)
Situational awareness enables insights, innovations and operations to be conducted faster and at lower cost .
Principle of Acceleration & Mobility – As demand for mobile apps increases, an even greater demand for changes will occur across business processes, operations and IT.
The more data that is collected and analyzed, the greater the economic value and innovation opportunity it has in aggregate.
Data has a shelf-life, and the economic value of data diminishes quickly over time.
The economic value of information multiplies when combined with context and right time delivery.
Mobile apps provide only as much value as the systems behind them.
Full Spectrum Information: Winners will dominate by collecting, transmitting, analyzing, reporting and automating decision making faster and better.
The size of opponents and their systems and platforms are less representative of power today, than the quality of their sensor systems, mobile communication links and their ability to use information to their advantage.
Information is a new asset class, in that it has measurable economic value. There are significant strategic, operational and financial reasons for investing in it, and optimizing it. (Douglas Laney, Gartner)
If I can develop and pursue my plan to defeat you faster than you can execute your plan to defeat me, then your plan in unimportant. ~ Robert Leonard

These laws need to be known, and their relevance intimately understood and applied to every aspect of business and IT today.

Download the new report “Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me” – http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/Cutting-Through-Chaos-in-the-Age-of-Mobile-Me-codex1579.pdf

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

“Current Laws Never Envisioned A Vehicle That Can Drive Itself”

August 24, 2015 Humor

In what’s an otherwise very good Fast Company article about autonomous cars, Charlie Sorrel conveniently elides one really important fact: not all the kinks have yet been worked out of the driverless experience. While Google has done extensive testing on the vehicles, inclement weather still causes them problems and visual-recognition systems need further enhancement. So, yes, legislation and entrenched human behaviors are significant barriers to be overcome, but the machines themselves continue to need fine-tuning.

Still, it’s an interesting article, especially the section about the nature of future cities that await us should we perfect and accept this new normal. An excerpt:

Famously, Google’s self-driving cars have clocked up 1.7 million miles over six years, all without major incident.

“In more than a million miles of real-world testing, autonomous vehicles have been involved in around a dozen crashes (with no major injuries),” says John Nielsen, AAA’s Managing Director of Automotive Engineering and Repair, “all of which occurred when a human driver was in control, or the vehicle was struck by another car.”

Self-driving cars are already way better than people-piloted cars, so what’s the trouble?

“Current laws never envisioned a vehicle that can drive itself, and there are numerous liability issues that need to be ironed out,” Nielsen says. “If an autonomous vehicle gets in a collision, who is responsible? The “driver,” their insurance company, the automaker that built the vehicle, or the third-party supplier that provided the autonomous control systems?”

How will the laws adapt? And how will we adapt? People are hesitant to embrace change, but the change that driverless cars will bring to our cities and lifestyles is enormous. What will it take to get there?•

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Laws for Mobility, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Process Automation

July 14, 2015 Mobile and Cloud

If you are the VP of Sales, it is quite likely you want and need to know up to date sales numbers, pipeline status and forecasts. If you are meeting with a prospect to close a deal, it is quite likely that having up to date business intelligence and CRM information would be useful. Likewise traveling to a remote job site to check on the progress of an engineering project is also an obvious trigger that you will need the latest project information. Developing solutions integrated with mobile applications that can anticipate your needs based upon your Code Halo data, the information that surrounds people, organizations, projects, activities and devices, and acting upon it automatically is where a large amount of productivity gains will be found in the future.

There needs to be a law, like Moore’s infamous law, that states, “The more data that is collected and analyzed, the greater the economic value it has in aggregate,” i.e. as Aristotle is credited with saying, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This law I believe is accurate and my colleagues at the Center for the Future of Work, wrote a book titled Code Halos that documents evidence of its truthfulness as well. I would also like to submit an additional law, “Data has a shelf-life and the economic value of data diminishes over time.” In other words, if I am negotiating a deal today, but can’t get the critical business data I need for another week, the data will not be as valuable to me then. The same is true if I am trying to optimize, in real-time, the schedules of 5,000 service techs, but don’t have up to date job status information. Receiving job status information tomorrow, does not help me optimize schedules today.

Mobile devices are powerful sensor platforms. They capture, through their many integrated sensors, information useful to establishing context. Capturing GPS coordinates for example, enables managers to see the location of their workforce. Using GPS coordinates and geo-fencing techniques enables a software solution to identify the job site where a team is located. The job site is associated with a project, budget, P&L, schedule and customer. Using this captured sensor data and merging it with an understanding of the needs of each supervisor based upon their title and role on the project enables context to be established. If supervisor A is responsible for electrical, then configure the software systems to recognize his/her physical approach to a jobsite and automatically send the latest information on the relevant component of the project.

I submit for your consideration yet another law, “The economic value of information multiplies when combined with context, meaning and right time delivery.” As we have seen, mobile technologies are critical for all of the laws discussed so far in this article.

Once sensors are deployed, sensor measurements captured, data wirelessly uploaded, and context understood, then business rules can be developed whereby intelligent processes can be automated. Here is an example, workers arrive at a jobsite and this data is captured via GPS sensors in their smartphones and their arrival automatically registers in the timesheet app and their supervisor is notified. As they near the jobsite in the morning, using geo-fencing rules, each worker is wirelessly sent their work assignments, instructions and project schedules for the day. The right data is sent to the right person on the right device at the right time.

The IoT (Internet of Things) is a world of connected sensors. These sensors feed more sources of captured data into the analytics engine that is used to find meaning and to provide situational awareness. If smartphones are mobile sensor platforms, then smartphones and IoT are both peas in the same pod.

Intelligent automated processes, like the ones mentioned above, are called “software robots” by some. These are “aware” processes acting upon real-time data in a manner that supports human activities and increases productivity. Here is what we all need to recognize – mobile applications and solutions are just the beginning in this value chain. Rule: Mobile apps provide only as much value as the systems behind them. Recognizing mobile devices are sensor and reporting platforms that front systems utilizing artificial intelligence and automated processes to optimize human productivity is where the giant leaps in productivity will be found.

If you agree with my premises, then you will understand the urgency to move beyond the simple testing and deployment of basic mobile apps and jump into building the real value in the intelligent systems behind them.

Summary of Laws:

The more data that is collected and analyzed, the greater the economic value it has in aggregate
Data has a shelf-life and the economic value of data diminishes over time
The economic value of information multiplies when combined with context, meaning and right time delivery
Mobile apps provide only as much value as the systems and intelligent processes behind them

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Chinese Internet Laws Target Government Control And Online Bullying

July 2, 2015 Mobile and Cloud

A new law voted unanimously yesterday by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress will enhance the Chinese government’s control over the Internet.

Neither the actual text nor the commencement date of the full law has yet been released.

But Chinese domestic media report that the law gives the government far-reaching and vague powers to control and secure important Internet infrastructure and enforce cybersecurity.

In fact, the Chinese government already has defacto control over everything online. Sixteen years ago, as the Internet rose in prominence in China, Web portals like Sohu.com and Netease.com had their offices routinely visited by government officials intent on censoring the Internet. And today, the oversight has grown with the rise of social media and Weibo.com and WeChat being routinely censored and controlled.

All Web servers in China must also be licensed and housed at approved Internet Service Provider locations, which provides Chinese government agencies with management abilities of all netizen activity. And foreign companies are still not allowed to participate fully or easily in many technology-related sectors such as cloud computing hosting, Internet advertising sales, and Internet gaming.

At the same time, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced this week that it has barred Chinese websites from reporting details of bullying cases involving minors. Web companies will be asked to remove offending material, and then will be fined if they fail to act.

The anti-bullying announcement is meant to support and protect both bullies and victims from social pressures that could inflict more harm.

Tag Archives: laws

Are you ready for America’s data protection laws?

No Time Like the Present to Get Up to Speed on Sales Tax Laws

Collateral Damage

Triggering Nexus

Impact on SaaS

Pursuing Compliance

Marketplace Nexus, Reporting Obligation

Yahoo, ACLU press US feds to disclose email snooping orders, surveillance laws

What’s Hot on ZDNet

Trumps Violated Immigration Laws

The 18 Laws for Winning with Data, Speed and Mobility

“Current Laws Never Envisioned A Vehicle That Can Drive Itself”

Laws for Mobility, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Process Automation

Chinese Internet Laws Target Government Control And Online Bullying

UK data laws may cause data center overload

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