Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

• Professor
• Professor (Full) at University of Oxford

Although technical fixes can help, solutions must focus on broader societal factors at play.

Faster, cheaper, and more versatile than traditional telecom hardware, U.S. fiber networks still face policy hurdles

Much has been penned over the last half decade or so on the pervasiveness and persistency of digital memory. With reportedly more than ten million photos uploaded to Facebook every single hour by one of its more than a billion users, large online platforms have become global repositories of digital memories. This has sparked an increasing number of...

Big Data promises huge benefits for medical research. Looking beyond superficial increases in the amount of data collected, we identify three key areas where Big Data differs from conventional analyses of data samples: (1) data is captured more comprehensively relative to the phenomenon under study; this reduces some bias but surfaces important tra...

The GDPR will bring substantial changes to the legal framework of information privacy in the European Union. In this article we take a look at the GDPR from the vantage point of Big Data analysis: will it facilitate or hinder Big Data in Europe? While we find that data collection is further restricted, we point at a somewhat surprising change that...

Aim: Big Data promises to change cardiology through a massive increase in the data gathered and analysed; but its impact goes beyond improving incrementally existing methods. Methods and results: The potential of comprehensive data sets for scientific discovery is examined, and its impact on the scientific method generally and cardiology in part...

Big data denotes our capacity to gain insights from (in relative terms!) large amounts of data that we could not have had by just looking at samples. Our difficulty in working with data has shaped our methods in the small data age. As these limitations with respect to data diminish, we will have to rethink and adjust our scientific methods. In retu...

This paper presents the findings of the Gone Dark Project, a joint study between the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University. The project has sought to give substance to frequent reports of Web sites "disappearing" (URLs that generate "404 not found" errors) by tracking and investigating...

When it comes to the data that can make or break us, who holds the power?

The Revolution of Big Data Big Data is changing our view of the world by changing our modes of approach, moving from analogue systems to digital-based knowledge. It represents an unprecedented resource for businesses and a decisive card for emerging countries. It will be a new point of competition for States in the future. However, as revolutionary...

In 2009, Google unveiled “Flu Trends,” a program designed to estimate rates of influenza infection based solely on the use of search terms submitted by users across the US. In their initial published report of the work in Nature (1), the authors demonstrated a striking match between their Google search–based estimates and the official flu statistic...

This study investigates the monetary value of virtual goods in the context of 24 most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Building on classic economic theory, we approach this issue through a combination of experimentation and cross-sectional time series data analysis. Our findings suggest that more intensive social n...

Nowadays individuals are often presented with long and complex privacy notices routinely written by lawyers for lawyers, and are then requested to either ‘consent’ or abandon the use of the desired service. The over-use of notice and consent presents increasing challenges in an age of ‘Big Data’. These phenomena are receiving attention particular...

In this age of globalization, technological innovation, and financial austerity, revolutionizing service design and delivery through citizen engagement has become a question of how, not if. Innovative approaches in public administration such as open government, big data, Public Private Partnerships, and networked government have been transforming p...

annual study 2011, quality of public service media, commissioned by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), http://bit.ly/INvNwl.

For decades, we have refined concepts of information privacy, as well as intellectual property, that are largely based on individual rights. Such an approach is undeniably appealing. It does not necessitate a large enforcement bureaucracy, ostensibly enhances human freedom and self-determination, and ensures efficient information allocation through...

Philip Rosedale, der Gründer und CEO von Linden Lab, könnte zufrieden sein. Sein Unternehmen betreibt Second Life, eine virtuelle Welt mit Millionen von Teilnehmern. Mehr als eine halbe Million davon verbringen 15 Stunden und mehr jede Woche in dieser Welt. Bis zu 80 000 davon sind gleichzeitig online.1 Linden Lab ist profitabel, ganz ohne Börsenga...

This study investigates the monetary value of time spent in virtual worlds in the context of 24 most popular MMORPGs. Building on classic economic theory, we approach this issue through a combination of theoretical modeling, experiment, and cross-sectional time series data analysis. Our findings suggest that intensive social networking and flatter...

To build a better Internet may require us to rewire the social communities that created its code.

Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google rememb...

Virtual worlds offer a fascinating perspective on regulatory dynamics between competing jurisdictions. More importantly, how these dynamics play out has vast consequences for real world regulators and tens of millions of users. I suggest that virtual world providers (especially dominant ones) may want to cede control (at least to an extent), while...

In the words of Jack Valenti, Peer-to-Peer video sharing engages the movie industry in a “furious battle” in which “file stealers” threaten to annihilate America’s “greatest trade export and an awesome engine of growth, nourishing the American economy.”1 To an extent, Internet digerati agree.2 Peer-to-Peer, they suggest, has changed the landscape o...

Lawrence Lessig shaped the nascent field of cyberlaw. In particular his argument that "code is law" has become a central tenant of the writings in the field. This Article offers a fundamental critique of Lessig's core argument—and thus of core assumptions of cyberlaw scholarship. It first focuses on the role Lessig ascribes to the market and how he...

Traditional economic theory rejects the notion that government can offer significant contributions to entrepreneurial development, beyond the structural and legal roles of protecting property and the rule of law. Ignorant or disbelieving of this fact, many national and local governments have sought to jump-start entrepreneurial activity on a large...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Experts discuss moving beyond the notion of electronic government and its focus on technology and efficiency to a broader concept of “information government” that incorporates the role of information flows within government, between government and citizens, and among citizens themselves. Developments in information and communication technology and...

Innovative entrepreneurship is seen as a central driver of economic growth. Lawmakers around the world have attempted to use law to foster such entrepreneurship. Yet, frequently law is described as the enemy of entrepreneurs. This paper argues that this is a fundamental misconception. In part I of the paper I suggest three distinct roles � leveling...

As humans we have the capacity to remember – and to forget. For millennia remembering was hard, and forgetting easy. By default, we would forget. Digital technology has inverted this. Today, with affordable storage, effortless retrieval and global access remembering has become the default, for us individually and for society as a whole. We store ou...

The demise of the Keynesian National Welfare State and its transformation into a more competitive and interactive unit of governance has given rise to an increased interest in the processes that are shaping the legal framework for markets. For several decades, one force has been taken to be tantamount to the law of nature governing the interaction...

The above bit string encodes personal information about one of the authors of this essay. Of course, without rules to decode the bit string, it is impossible to say whether it is genetic information, weight, age, fingerprint, religion, etc. Layered on top of that technical decoding process is a social decoding process – how sensitive is this inform...

Over the last several years, many have called for an internationalization of Internet governance in general, and Internet naming and numbering in particular. The multi-year WSIS process that culminated in November 2005 was intended to create momentum in such direction. The United States has long resisted such internationalization, fearing in partic...

This article examines an understudied area of telecommunication policy, namely the regulation of public safety radio communication to bring about communication interoperability. Commonality and funding are the two intertwined policy challenges need to be overcome to achieve this interoperability. Addressing these challenges separately, US federal p...

Protecting infrastructure from calamity has always been important for industry, government and society. Yet with more activities dependent on computer networks -- from banking and aviation to emergency services -- the reliability and security of information and communication systems against disasters, both natural and man-made, are in doubt. The qu...

More than a decade ago John Perry Barlow envisioned a cyberspace free from real-world regulation. His vision was flawed. But virtual worlds, in which millions of users around the world spend significant amounts of their time (and money) interacting and transacting with each other, may prove Barlow right after all. In this paper, we look at the univ...

Is DNA technology the ultimate diviner of guilt or the ultimate threat to civil liberties? Over the past decade, DNA has been used to exonerate hundreds and to convict thousands. Its expanded use over the coming decade promises to recalibrate significantly the balance between collective security and individual freedom. For example, it is possible t...

The commercialization of the Internet in the second half of the 1990s triggered a wave of entrepreneurial activity, as well as a burst of innovation and Schumpeterian “creative destruction” (Schumpeter 1942). Despite the eventual burst of the dot-com bubble, a number of ecommerce brands have become household names, and the services they offer are u...

Three hurdles are identified that have to be overcome to make interoperability a reality: technology, common frequency and standard, and funding. Of these funding and the collective action problems associated with it poses the most significant obstacle. Based on collective action theory and case studies two strategies are examined that have been ut...

This article suggests that metaphors are essential to understanding leadership. Metaphors can serve as underlying organizing structures of leadership thinking and experience, and they can be mobilized in order to accomplish interpersonal goals. The literature on leadership abounds with metaphors such as leadership as game, sports, art or machine. W...

When on September 11, 2001, the Pentagon stood ablaze, responding fire companies from Maryland could not communicate with those from Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. Runners had to be used instead, stalling rescue efforts: a powerful reminder that even in the age of digital networks and ubiquitous cell phones, communication interoperability,...

While its cryptic wizardry remains little understood by the average citizen, electronic signatures have been dubbed a cornerstone of the information economy. Over the last two years legislatures on both sides of the Atlantic have rushed to enact electronic signature statutes to provide appropriate legal frameworks for their use. In this article we...

This book is about the complex and changing relationship between levels of governance in the US and the European Union. On the basis of a transatlantic dialogue between scholars concerned about modes of governance on both sides, it is a collective attempt at analysing the ramifications of the legitimacy crisis in these multi‐layered democracies, an...

While its cryptic wizardry remains little understood by the average citizen, electronic signatures have been dubbed a cornerstone of the information economy. Over the last two years legislatures on both sides of the Atlantic have rushed to enact electronic signature statutes to provide appropriate legal frameworks for their use. In this article we...

Modern information and communication technologies are reshaping the environment in which foreign policy and international relations are conducted. According to conventional wisdom the information revolution has increased the influence of non-state actors and undermined the authority of the nation-state. While there is mounting anecdotal evidence su...

Agenda 21 dedicates a whole chapter to the role and importance of information for sustainable development. Among the provisions on harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) one paragraph addresses the need for a strengthening of the capacity for traditional information . Local communities and resource users should...

Stellt man sich dem Thema der Rechtsanwendung im Hinblick auf die neuen Informationsund Kommunikationstechnologien, so muß man sich zuerst fragen, was denn so neu ist an den neuen Technologien. Ist das Internet, bloß ein weiteres Medium, wie das Fernsehen oder das Radio, oder doch nur eine kleine Ergänzung in der Evolution der vermittelten Öffentli...

On 1 July, 1998 Austria took over the EU presidency for the remainder of the year. With community legislation on digital signatures being on top of the list of information society measures left uncompleted by the British presidency, Austria finds itself rather rudely awakened to deal with a complex matter. What is the status of the discussion in Au...

Viktor Mayer-Schonberger looks at the privacy threat posed by the `cookie' which enables personal information to be transferred to an Internet Web server every time a user directs the Web browser to display a certain Web page from that server.

Today millions of technologically empowered individuals are able to participate freely in international transactions and enterprises, social and economic. These activities are governed by national and local laws designed for simpler times and now challenged by a new technological and market environment as well as by the practicalities and politics...