eco International
In the eco International division, the year 2022 continued to be shaped by virtual activities alongside partners and association members. In January, dotmagazine celebrated its fifth birthday.
Fifty issues had been published since 2019, involving over 500 contributions from members and partners of the eco Association. Many thanks to all authors, and we very much look forward to the next 500 articles!
Based on the topDNS Initiative of the Names & Numbers Forum Competence Group, another successful project was launched at the beginning of the year, bringing members together to combat DNS abuse. The initiative not only works in cooperation with the Anti-Abuse and Security Competence Groups, but also with numerous partners such as the DNS Abuse Institute, the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network and the Global Cyber Alliance.
Throughout the year, the association’s “Policy & Law” division shared information on current regulatory topics from the European Union and Germany, with these provided via Policy Alert, Policy Digest, the weekly View from Brussels and the “eco european” newsletter. Furthermore, members were regularly informed about current topics from the European institutions via the online format “eco bxlTALK”.
Over the course of the year, eco was also in presence for its members at a large number of events at the international level, such as the Gaia-X Summit or the ICANN meetings. The close cooperation with ICANN continued in 2022 with a series of webinars, as well as the now well-established readouts, involving summaries of the ICANN meetings and associated discussions. As an active member of the Board of the “Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact”, the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany also plays an active role beyond Germany’s borders.
International members
In 2022, eco had almost 400 member companies from over 60 countries based outside of Germany. The majority of member companies are located in the European Union and North America states. With the support of the English-language service offer, which has been expanded in recent years, many members have been able to become even more intensively involved in the active work of the association.
Cooperative activities & events
For the first time since 2019, collaborative events with the American Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) could take place once again on an on-site basis, this time covering the topic of the US-EU Data Privacy Framework. On 6 October, eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme and members of both associations held discussions in the US Washington capital on US President Biden’s Executive Order, alongside Ruth Berry, Senior Policy Advisor at the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy at the US Department of State. In turn, on 6 December, the eco Association hosted Geneviève Tuts, Head of Cabinet, European Commission DG JUST, in Brussels for an exchange with European members, with this event led by Alexander Rabe and Davis Snead.
In the European umbrella association EuroISPA, Thomas Bihlmayer’s position as treasurer was reconfirmed.
In addition, eco continued its ongoing cooperation with a large number of European partner associations: In May, Thomas Rickert presented the new topDNS Initiative at the CENTR Jamboree in Prague. A further close exchange on positions and current topics took place with CISPE, the Dutch and Danish Cloud Community, the Dutch and European Data Centre Association and other European industry associations.
The cooperation between eco and the Internet Society in 2022 was primarily shaped by the joint activities of the Global Encryption Coalition. eco’s CEO Harald A. Summa continued to serve as Co-Chair on the Organisational Member Advisory Council. ars Steffen was reappointed as a member of the Elections Committee, which oversees the annual elections to the ISOC Board of Trustees.
International communication
The English-language magazine for members, entitled dotmagazine, continued to enjoy an unabated resonance from eco member readers and authors in 2022. Nearly 80,000 visitors from all over the world accessed the articles, interviews, podcasts and videos. The regularly changing topics cover all relevant areas of the Internet industry’s value chain. Interested members are cordially invited to contact dotmagazine@eco.de.
Newsletter, social media & websites
The dotmagazine newsletter provides monthly information about the association’s activities and regularly presents the latest articles. The number of subscribers once again markedly grew to reach over 1,200 in 2022.
The number of Twitter followers of the English-language eco account increased once more over the course of the year. The English-language LinkedIn account was able to gain more than 500 new followers by the end of the year. The industry platform CircleID.com regularly publishes articles on the association’s activities.
The eco International team also successfully continued its translation and support work for all fields of the association – which also included DE-CIX, CSA, Gaia-X and EuroCloud – with this all largely managed via remote working. Over the course of the year, well over 200 association news items, interviews, annual reports, studies, positions and documents were translated and published on international.eco.de.
At the end of the year, Judith Ellis left the eco International team to pursue new ventures in her future role as Global Content Manager Public Relations at DE-CIX. She had not only launched dotmagazine and paved the way for the team many years ago, but she was also involved in projects, workshops and events and generated numerous articles, reports and interviews for the English-speaking eco community. The entire eco team would like to take this opportunity to warmly thank her and wish her all the best and much success for the future!
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