hm. one day later, this interesting critique came out. here’s a little taste: … "But we should not despair. The way forward is to recover and nurture a different dimension to the much-feared Balkanization. So yes, there's a third way. Balkanization – a concept hijacked by technology firms on both sides of the Atlantic to push for their own business agendas – can also mean something very different and more upbeat: decentralization of information infrastructure combined with the erection of a few occasional barriers to what would otherwise be perfectly frictionless movement of data. Silicon Valley hates friction – in the 1990s Bill Gates sang gospels to “frictionless capitalism” and, more recently, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg lauded “frictionless sharing” – but should we not inquire as to how much frictionlessness a democratic system can withhold?” and here’s a link to the post: http://blogs.sueddeutsche.de/feuilletonist/2014/01/20/the-world-is-noth-enou... m On Jan 22, 2014, at 9:11 AM, Mike O'Connor <mike@haven2.com> wrote:

hi all,

i’m finding this to be a nice combination of my two policy hobbies (ICANN and Minnesota broadband).

http://www.bcg.com/expertise_impact/PublicationDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-152889...

To help “grease the wheels” of the digital economy, the BCG e-Friction Index measures the four types of friction that prevent consumers, companies, and countries from realizing the full benefits of the digital economy. Smart policy can address e-friction and speed the development of Internet use and individual countries’ Internet economies.

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