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At yesterday’s White House Summit on “Climate & the Road to Paris: Business & Science Coming Together administration officials announced that 81 companies have now made public commitments to the “American Business Act on Climate Pledge.” The Summit was chocked full of ITI member company representatives. Small wonder. Of the 81 companies that have pledged their support and committed to take action on [...]
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After two years of breakneck work, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its final reports last week on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, which is aimed at coordinating international taxation among member countries. While this work may have drawn little attention from the general public, tax experts around the country are busy analyzing the impact [...]
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Last week I was in Istanbul, Turkey, to participate in the G20, B20, and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) meetings related to the digital economy and the importance of addressing data localization requirements and other types of forced localization measures. The news concerning the Safe Harbor ruling by the European Court of Justice colored all of the discussions at these meetings, as business [...]
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Members of the IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS) and the tech sector at large were pleased to learn that California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has vetoed AB 522, a bill that would have created a statutory mandate for the Director of the Department of Technology to develop a standardized contractor performance assessment report system to evaluate the performance of a contractor on certain technology contracts [...]
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Despite the veto threat looming over it, there is reason to cheer that the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) came in ahead of the December timeframe observers have come to expect. More importantly, the conference report for the NDAA bill, H.R. 1735, that was passed by the House yesterday is chock full of forward-leaning provisions that change the way that the Department of [...]
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I’m on the ground in Geneva, Switzerland, as negotiators discuss the time periods for eliminating tariffs on technology products listed under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Information Technology Agreement (ITA). Many critics say the WTO cannot keep up with evolving business and consumer dynamics around the world. The WTO’s Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations are increasingly irrelevant [...]
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An interim rule which went into immediate effect when it was released last month by the Department of Defense (DOD), DFARS Case 2013-D018 on Network Penetration Reporting and Contracting for Cloud Services, has changed the way that contractors and suppliers report network penetrations to DOD. It imposes stricter regulations on how contractors can sell cloud computing services to DOD, including how [...]
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ITI released a letter commenting on the draft Innovation Promotion Act today. This bipartisan effort, led by Congressmen Charles Boustany, R-La., and Richard Neal, D-Mass., is a productive first step towards leveling the playing field for the United States in an increasingly competitive global environment. In recent years, ITI members have raised the alarm that our trading partners around the world [...]
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NEW YORK – Today I had the privilege of attending a high-level panel discussion entitled “Development in the Digital Age” in the context of the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York, where the U.S. State Department launched its much-anticipated Global Connect initiative. For so many people, access to social and economic opportunities now depends on access to the Internet. Unfortunately, [...]
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The European Union’s plan to create a Digital Single Market (DSM), which would reduce barriers to digital trade and innovation within Europe, is at a pivotal phase. In the coming months, EU officials will hold a wide-ranging conversation with companies, public interest groups, and individual citizens regarding the details of this ambitious project. This week, European Commissioner for Digital Economy [...]
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