In Brief German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken out against the digital world's freedom from the stringent regulation that is applied to international finance and trade. To address this issue, she plans to lay the groundwork for global digital regulation at the G20 summit in July. Merkel and the Digital World

At the Dual Year Germany Mexico event in Mexico City earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressedthe lack of regulation within the transglobal digital world, pointing outthe relative freedom companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon enjoy in comparison to those involved in areas such as finance or trade.

Merkel stated that the world needs to introduce an international policy to govern Industry 4.0, a term used by German politiciansto describe thegrowth of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart devices, and automation. She argued that the need is pressing asthe disparate national policies currently in place could prove disastrous at any moment.

We still have no international rules, Merkel explained during her visit. Some provider could emerge thats an island, and from which things could be done, relevant to security, that could destroy an entire system. On this question of the rules-based handling of it, were still right at the start.

Europe has already begun to take serious action against the misuse of data, now the worlds most popular resource. European antitrust officialsjust fined Google a record $2.7 billionfor skewing results in their own favor. Meanwhile, Germany has been spearheading the prosecution of digital data firms, recently introducing a 9th amendment to the German Competition Act (ARC) that makes it easierto fine digital companies.

However, Merkel has no plans to wait for something to be done on a global scale. Her goal is to lay the groundwork for global regulation at a G20 summitin July, working out a consistent policy on how to approach the possible violations of security, privacy, and coercion enacted by internet behemoths.

As Merkel noted during her visit to Mexico,ensuring the security of the digital world will require international collaboration, so hopefully all of the countriesin the G20 will be open to working together to that end when they meet inHamburg in a few short weeks.

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Germany Wants to Crack Down on the Digital World's Lack of Regulation - Futurism