Internet Players Research Articles

Information as a Factor Regulating and Deregulating Markets. A Case Study of the Dot.Com Crisis, the Lehman Brothers Crisis and the Sars-Cov2 Pandemic

Abstract Present, as Manuel Castells (1996) notes, we live in the information age. Knowledge and the way it is acquired and processed are the driving forces of the economy, and information processing systems are the strength of economies. The aim of this article is to identify the key role of the information supply phenomenon in contemporary socio-economic processes. The initial part of the article will define such concepts as: information, infodemia, information market, in the further part examples of the use of information in the process of forming social behaviour in the market context will be presented. For this purpose, three major economic crises from the turn of the 20th and 21st century will be used cross-sectionally. The first will be described as the dot-com crisis, i.e. the first global Internet players, which led to the collapse or loss of value of many global Internet platforms through the creation and bursting of a speculative bubble. The second crisis described below was related to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a leading US bank, and the US housing crisis. In the above case, both supply and concealment of information in the public sphere could be observed. The last crisis described is the crisis related to the SARS-COV2 pandemic, in which dis- and mis- information activities proved to be crucial.

Taming Digital Monopolies: A Comparative Account of the Evolution of Antitrust and Regulation in the European Union and the United States

This paper offers a comparative account of how the European Union and the United States surveil dominant internet players in light of recent enforcement efforts by U.S. antitrust agencies and ongoing discussions about regulating digital giants in both jurisdictions. After setting out themes for comparative analysis, the paper turns to the two actions initiated in the United States against Google: the one filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) is similar in focus to the European Commission’s Android decision and the one led by the State of Texas focuses on advertising markets in a manner similar to the European Commission’s AdSense decision. We observe that while there are similar intuitions about anticompetitive conduct in the manner both jurisdictions address the issues, the framing of the competition problem by the U.S. agencies is more sophisticated in relation to the understanding of the markets, the theories of harm, and the design of forward-looking remedies. The paper then compares the Commission’s proposal for a Digital Markets Act with several Bills proposing platform regulation presently discussed in the United States, examining what the two systems have in common, what they may learn from each other, and what regulatory gaps remain.

Hybrid Recommender System for Music Information Retrieval

Music plays an integral role in our lives as the most popular type of recreation. With the advent of new technologies such as Internet and portable media players, large amount of music data is available online which can be distributed and easily made available to people. Enormous amount of music data is released every year by several artists with songs varying in features, genre and so on. Because of this, a need for reliable and easy access of songs based on user preferences is necessary. The recommender system focuses on generating playlists based on the physical, perceptual and acoustical properties of the song (content based filtering approach), or on commonalities between users on a particular basis like ratings or user data history (collaborative filtering). The system thus developed is a hybrid music recommender tool which creates a user centric suggestion system accompanied by feature extraction which in turn enhances the accuracy of music recommendations.

INVESTIGATION OF SIBER VACCINATIONS AND AWARENESS OF AMATEURS AND PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS

Objective: In this study, it was aimed to examine the attitudes of amateur and professional football players regarding their cyber victimization and awareness according to various variables. Materials and methods: The universe of the study consists of footballers playing in amateur and professional football clubs 334 of these players were randomly selected and included in the study.The questionnaire forms are personal information form consisting of 10 questions and 14 Cyber Sensitivity Scale 14 with 14 items and “Cyber Victimization Scale“ with 24 items. The 14-item "Cyber Sensitivity Scale" developed by Tanrıkulu et al. (2013) and the 24-item "Cyber Victimization Scale" developed by Arıcak et al. (2012) were used. One-way analysis of variance (Anova), t-test will be applied to determine the difference between frequency and percentage distributions and some independent variables related to players (gender, age, marital status etc.). Results and Conclusion: The age of football, occupation, classification group, age of football, internet use matches have no effect on cyber (cyber) bullying sensitivity. 21-25 years old players are more sensitive to cyber (cyber) bullying. Virtual victimization of football players, single, student, 16-20 age, secondary education, 7-9 hours of internet and amateur football players playing in the league has been seen more than the virtual victimization. When the variables are examined, it can be thought that this group has more access to internet and more cyber victimization because they use more internet.

Industrie 4.0 by Siemens

The digital disruption is to transform all industries, leading to new business models based on the new technologies. In manufacturing, one model for digital disruption is Industrie 4.0. Proposals for Industrie 4.0 involve the virtualization and vertical and horizontal integration of the value chain, digital services, the digital transformation of products, the digital transformation of production equipment, the digital transformation of factories and the digital transformation of supply chains. The former two are already in place today. This article and its follow-up builds an overview of the pillars of Industrie 4.0 as addressed by the proponents of the model, by consultancy companies, by journal research, and by the customer proposition of Siemens. CapGemeni rate General Electric as a key player in the Industrial Internet in the Digital Revolution, and Siemens is its contestant. This article builds a detailed analysis of Siemens' strategy which covers the steps already made and the steps to be made in the future as a follow-up. The digital twin strategy leads the way to the next stage.

Platform Competition in Online Digital Market

The Internet has dramatically changed social and industrial dynamics. Two decades after the rise of the modern Internet, more and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services. On one hand the Internet is generating an immense economic value, on the other hand it has a disruptive impact on a large number of markets. This paper consists in both economic theory and policy analysis regarding the internet industry. The former aspect refers to network effects, product differentiation, multi-sided platform, etc.; with the latter we discuss the potential market power, consumer lock-in effect, incentives for innovation, etc. We first summarized the main features in the digital era: direct and indirect network effects, economies of scale, differentiated services accessed by internet users, etc. Consequently a market structure exhibits both “superstar” effects and “long tail” effects. Considering the success of some large internet player and the potential competition concerns, the paper discusses the role of dynamic competition, in the lens of market competition. The study applies also the new tools and models of economic analysis relevant to the internet and the audiovisual market, such as multi-sided platform, dynamic competition, etc. We claim that some indicators of market power in a single-sided market have to be reviewed under multi-sided scenario. Besides addressing the importance of competition, this paper emphasizes that the ideal regulatory regime should safeguard and encourage innovation. Rapid innovation and its adaptation is no doubt the central feature of the internet, and is also the main driver of economic growth.

Injunctions Against Online Intermediaries Towards a Balanced Model for International Harmonisation

The development of internet brought many challenges to the traditional intellectual property rights protection and enforcement, particularly copyright. Web 2.0 interactive websites, besides contributing to a wider distribution of new literary and artistic works, also allow the illegal copy and spread of protected contents by “anonymous” users with almost no costs. In this scenario, internet intermediaries are seen as the key to the combat of online piracy, since they are in a privileged position to identify infringers and to implement technologies destined to remove infringing material. Considering that injunctions against intermediaries may have severe consequences for the fundamental rights of other internet players, it is essential to define clear limits in an attempt to achieve a fair balance of those interests. Furthermore, since the internet is a reality without borders, an international definition of those boundaries would contribute to a more effective system for combat to copyright infringements. While in some cases the similarities between the practices permit an international harmonisation, in other circumstances minimum protection may be considered a large step towards a more harmonised enforcement system. After outlining the main fundamental rights involved, this work identifies the most commonly issued injunctions against intermediaries and the limits imposed by the European Union jurisdiction in the light of those fundamental rights. Furthermore, it examines the new challenges brought by the Proposed Copyright Directive and the main limits imposed by the United States framework. Finally, after concluding for the need of an internationally harmonised regime, this work identifies the major shared aspects and practices found in both the European Union and the United States legal systems and extracts the common principles that may serve as a basis for an international model that provides higher harmonisation, brings legal certainty and fixes the necessary limits to reconcile all the fundamental rights involved.

EIS Crossing Barriers and Work as a Espousal to Transform

Someone who buys Yahoo at this instant will get hold of their Asian stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan (which is in part owned by SoftBank). Alibaba and SoftBank are going to be amongst the top 10 (if not top 5) global Internet players in the next 10 years. So many people deleted their Uber accounts in the wake of the ‘#DeleteUber’ movement that the ride-sharing company had to rapidly generate a mechanized way for customers to run off the service. The mass migration began on 27th January shortly after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order as an interim measure so to stop citizens from seven countries from entering the United States. This caused a large remonstration at New York’s JFK airport, supported by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, who went on strike and stopped pickups in the area. Alibaba is going to formulate a gigantic move into the US and it is expected that Amazon and Jeff Bezos in its cross-hairs.

Shedding Light on the Internet: Stakeholders and Network Neutrality

The latest impressive technological advancements in the telecommunications domain have entailed the involvement of new network operators and over-the-top (OTT) providers that offer their services over the existing networks. This entry of new stakeholders has changed the Internet dynamics and triggered a long-standing conversation on whether different types of data in the network should be prioritized, also known as the network neutrality debate. On the one hand, OTT providers benefit from the current neutral Internet policy of not discriminating against any application or content in order to transfer their data for free, whereas network providers would like to seize the business opportunity and create revenues by supporting the prioritized delivery of data. In this article, we want to shed light on the emerging Internet ecosystem and the conflicting interests of its stakeholders. To that end, we first identify the different Internet players and describe their interrelationships. Furthermore, in an effort to offer a new perspective on the network neutrality debate, we propose two novel econometric models that employ recent financial data to capture the relationship between the OTT revenues and the financial gains and investments of the telecommunication operators. Our empirical results provide tangible answers to fundamental questions that had not been answered before, showcasing that OTT and telecommunication providers have aligned interests and their collaboration could be beneficial to both parties.

Tapping the Value From Big Data Analytics

Management In a recent GE/Accenture report, surveys show that 81% of senior executives believe that big data analytics is one of the top three corporate priorities for the oil and gas industry through 2018. A striking finding was the sense of urgency felt by respondents about implementing data analytics solutions. This trend is driven primarily by current market conditions that are pushing companies to find new ways to become more efficient in exploration and production. In the quest by operators to become more efficient, many new initiatives are currently under way within organizations. Driven primarily by central excellence teams, objectives are to leverage both low- and high-resolution data (high-resolution data defined as data collected in seconds/minutes) to make better decisions quickly vs. a traditional approach of evaluating trends over a 12- or 24-hour period or after the fact using old reporting methods. Decision makers are convinced that if other industries such as airlines and consumer Internet players such as Amazon and Expedia can leverage big data to drive efficiency and growth, the same should and can apply to the oil and gas industry. Actionable Insights and Lower Costs If their assumptions are correct, leveraging hidden insights from mining data can help enterprise users make better, smarter decisions and reduce operational costs. However, as the industry pays closer attention to these initiatives, it is getting exposed to some harsh realities, including big data being uncharted territory for information technology (IT) and a company’s business side. Efforts to improve may actually lead to worse instead of better decision making if conducted using the wrong approaches. Further complicating the data analytics issue, most IT organizations are traditionally more familiar with process automation projects where business needs are known and stable. In contrast, data needs are context-dependent, dynamic, and may be unarticulated or even unknown sometimes. Solving this challenge requires anthropological skills that are in short supply in today’s IT world. Unfortunately, traditional requirements gathering fails when assessing data needs since the needs are fast-changing and diverse. Additionally, today’s machine data quality (especially on historical data) lacks accuracy, precision, completeness, and consistency for real-time analytics. As a practical matter, less than 50% of today’s enterprise users find information from corporate sources to be in a usable format. This problem will only get worse as the number of information sources, uses, and users continues to increase.

A three stage analysis of motivational and behavioural factors in UK internet gambling

This paper uses the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) to determine differences in UK internet player responses to their motives for gambling online. It also evaluates their views relating to responsible gambling practices and behavioural factors. A three stage analysis applying Structural Equation Modelling (SEM); multiple regression; and multinomial logistic regression is used. The main research instruments is an internet based questionnaire. Our findings for the motivation factors highlight that the most significant factors which players perceive are escape and relaxation; financial motivation; and social and competition. In terms of player views in relation to responsible gambling practices and behavioural factors both self-exclusion and self-help; and game design are identified as the key factors. Other factors such as proactive responsible gambling; transparent terms and conditions; and use of player information are not acknowledged as significant factors by players. This study also suggests that the financial motive to gamble should be divided into the following sub-motives: ‘to win money’ and to ‘earn income’. Our main policy recommendation includes the need for a more transparent system that places emphasis on tangible or auditable means of demonstrating ethical responsibilities, and to determine areas of improvement.

A Big Data Test-bed for Analyzing Data Generated by an Air Pollution Sensor Network

Sensor networks have perceived an extraordinary growth in the last few years. From niche industrial and military applications, they are currently deployed in a wide range of settings as sensors are becoming smaller, cheaper and easier to use. Sensor networks are a key player in the so-called Internet of Things, generating exponentially increasing amounts of data. Nonetheless, there are very few documented works that tackle the challenges related with the collection, manipulation and exploitation of the data generated by these networks. This paper presents a proposal for integrating Big Data tools (in rest and in motion) for gathering, storage and analysis of data generated by a sensor network that monitors air pollution levels in a city. The authors provide a proof of concept that combines Hadoop and Storm for data processing, storage and analysis, and Arduino-based kits for constructing their sensor prototypes.

How Information Systems Enable Digital Transformation: A Focus on Business Models and Value CooProduction

The digital economy has now a widespread impact on the whole economy and leads companies to transform and adopt new competition rules. Our objectives in this paper are:1) to analyze these evolutions and,2) to understand the role of informations systems in these changes. We have investigated two opposite environments: a pure Internet player selling an SaaS offering, and a traditional business that distributes products through a physical network of thousands of outlets. Our results show that both Internet players and traditional companies experience changes in the industry value chain, a growing importance of services, and develop new business models focused on an extended value proposition and cooperation with customers. The role of information systems is characterized by the evolution of the IT infrastructure, the expansion of inter organizational information systems and digital platforms and the development of new IT capabilities.

Exclusionary strategies and the rise of winner-takes-it-all markets on the Internet

The success of late entrants in many digital markets suggests network and lock-in effects, albeit important market forces in most digital markets, do not confer sustainable first-mover advantages. In our analysis we suggest exclusionary practices may play a major role explaining the rise of “winner-takes-it-all” markets on the Internet. The entry deterrence literature has extensively analyzed incumbents׳ strategic moves in order to make market entry unprofitable or, at least, to minimize the harm that entry causes. In our paper we propose a richer theoretical framework allowing both the incumbent as well as a new entrant to carry out strategic investments. Those allow the incumbent to deter market entry, but also the new entrant to squeeze the incumbent out of the market. We find that competitive advantage and strategic interaction determine a “winner-takes-it all” or a duopoly market outcome. If neither player enjoys a clear-cut cost or demand advantage, a duopoly market outcome will emerge. However, for both incumbent and new entrant there is a strong incentive to complement a possible competitive advantage with exclusionary practices in order to monopolize a market and increase profits. This result suggests “winner-takes-it-all” market results on the Internet may result from exclusionary practices, nourishing antitrust concerns with today׳s major Internet players’ market dominance.

Interrupted Dialogue (“Friend”/”Foe” Conflict in New New Media)

New media, Internet and especially media Web. 2.0 are seen as the place of information exchange, creating dialogue, opening to the Other, Different, they are becoming a meeting place (Ryszard Kapuscinski). However, if we examine the space of the blogosphere, Facebook, Twitter, it can be seen as something quite different, the opposite. The network society becomes on the one hand, the community, connecting all users on the network, on the other hand, we can observe alienation from this society, people became more excluded and alone . In the new media we often meet up with closed space for “Ours” and to reject the “Others”. This kind of media became the birth place of "democracy 2. 0 “ and “outraged network" (Manuell Castells). The Democracy 2.0. is being born in front of our eyes and its character is determined by the biggest Internet players, politics and also - the one that stays in “contra” - regular Internet users. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3s1p61

Exclusionary Strategies and the Rise of Winner-Takes-It-All Markets on the Internet

The success of late entrants in many digital markets suggests network and lock-in effects, albeit important market forces in most digital markets, do not confer sustainable first-mover advantages. In our analysis we suggest exclusionary practices may play a major role explaining the rise of winner-takes-it-all markets on the Internet. The entry deterrence literature has extensively analyzed incumbents’ strategic moves in order to make market entry unprofitable or, at least, to minimize the harm that entry causes. In our paper we propose a richer theoretical framework allowing both the incumbent as well as a new entrant to carry out strategic investments. Those allow the incumbent to deter market entry, but also the new entrant to squeeze the incumbent out of the market. We find that competitive advantage and strategic interaction determine a winner-takes-it all or a duopoly market outcome. If neither player enjoys a clear-cut cost or demand advantage, a duopoly market outcome will emerge. However, for both incumbent and new entrant there is a strong incentive to complement a possible competitive advantage with exclusionary practices in order to monopolize a market and increase profits. This result suggests winner-takes-it-all market results on the Internet may result from exclusionary practices, nourishing antitrust concerns with today’s major Internet players’ market dominance.

Proposal for the Reform of the Regulation of Digital Services

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the positions of Orange. The internet offers an ever richer choice of digital services delivered via telecommunication networks that are overall of great benefit to consumers in terms of choice, but that require the updating of the current legal framework to ensure effective customer protection and to preserve the public interest, especially concerning such transverse issues as transparency, non-discrimination, security and privacy. The market is in transition, notably for voice and messaging services, with an increasing number of services such as those provided by “Over The Top” (OTT) internet players, existing alongside traditional services still provided by telecoms operators and other services that result from partnerships between telcos and OTT providers or might even be produced by telcos in an OTT like fashion. The time when there was a clear distinction between electronic communication services (ECS), as produced by telcos, and information society services (ISS), only produced by OTTs, is over. The old rules are no longer adequate and yet still apply, while new issues are not addressed and require action. This is why it is now important for the legislative framework and regulatory practices to embrace this phase of development. The European Commission has acknowledged the need for reforms and now needs to adopt a comprehensive approach to this task in order to fulfil the promise of creating the right conditions to stimulate growth in the digital market in Europe. The starting point for the reforms should be the creation of a digital services category with the reclassification of traditional communication services, followed by the reorganisation of the associated obligations such as transparency and non-discrimination, security, privacy, data retention, emergency services, interoperability and portability. Hence, digital services would be subject to a common set of rules enshrined in a new horizontal European legislation, whichever the provider or the technology used. Such an approach should be preferred to sector specific rules. This new horizontal text should be combined with the review of the current electronic communications framework to limit it to Electronic Communication Networks (ECN) and Internet Access Services (IAS), excluding all other communication services, such as traditional telephony, that could then be covered by the new horizontal instrument, as would VoIP telephony. An assessment of the impact of these changes on the Framework Directives and other related regulations shows that they would lead to welcome clarification and updates. This paper recommends a new classification of digital services and proposes principles that should drive the reorganisation of associated obligations. It provides a future structure for clear and effective provisions supporting consumer protection, the defence of public interests and fair competition.

Towards Effective Control of P2P Traffic Aggregates in Network Infrastructures

Nowadays, many P2P applications proliferate in the Internet. The attractiveness of many of these systems relies on the collaborative approach used to exchange large resources without the dependence and associated constraints of centralized approaches where a single server is responsible to handle all the requests from the clients. As consequence, some P2P systems are also interesting and cost-effective approaches to be adopted by content providers and other Internet players. However, there areseveral coexistence problems between P2P applications and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) due to the unforeseeable behavior of P2P traffic aggregates in ISP infrastructures.In this context, this work proposes a collaborative P2P/ISPsystem able to underpin the development of novel Traffic Engineering (TE) mechanisms contributing for a better coexistence between P2P applications and ISPs. Using the devised system, two TE methods are described being able to estimate and control the impact of P2P traffic aggregates on the ISP network links. One of the TE methods allows that ISP administrators are able to foresee the expected impact that a given P2P swarm will have in the underlying network infrastructure. The other TE method enables the definition of ISP friendly P2P topologies, where specific network links are protected from P2P traffic. As result, the proposed system and associated mechanisms will contributefor improved ISP resource management tasks and to foster the deployment of innovative ISP-friendly systems.

Enriched presence information on converged communication platforms

Consumers have access to an increasingly wide variety of devices and modalities to communicate with others. The concept of enriched presence information helps users to harness such complexity by showing which device and modality is currently being preferred by their contacts. Operators can offer enriched presence information by utilizing recently developed converged communication standards like Rich Communication Suite–Enhanced (RCS-E). The present article tests the usefulness of enriched presence features for two prototype applications built upon RCS standards. A quasi-experiment shows that users become more positive about the usefulness of enriched presence information after trying out the two applications. Whilst findings suggest operators should introduce services that offer enriched presence information, our troublesome and lengthy prototyping process indicates that operators will not get the services to the market in time to hold off Internet players offering similar functionality.

Understanding the evolution of multimedia content in the internet through bittorrent glasses

Today's Internet traffic is mostly dominated by multimedia content and the prediction is that this trend will intensify in the future. Therefore, main Internet players, such as ISPs, content delivery platforms (e.g. Youtube, Bitorrent, Netflix, etc) or CDN operators, need to understand the evolution of multimedia content availability and popularity in order to adapt their infrastructures and resources to satisfy clients requirements while they minimize their costs. This paper presents a thorough analysis on the evolution of multimedia content available in BitTorrent. Specifically, we analyze the evolution of four relevant metrics across different content categories: content availability, content popularity, content size and user's feedback. To this end we leverage a large-scale dataset formed by four snapshots collected from the most popular BitTorrent portal, namely The Pirate Bay, between Nov. 2009 and Feb. 2012. Overall our dataset is formed by more than 160k content that attracted more than 185M of download sessions.