6. Conclusion

1. Responsibility and trust do not go hand in hand on the Internet

The decision-makers agree: anyone causing a risk must also bear responsibility for the consequences – but evidently not to the same degree. Although large, global Internet service providers and users are regarded as more or less equally great potential sources of risk (surpassed only by hackers), users are expected to assume significantly greater responsibility. This seeming disparity can be ex- plained by two fundamental assessments:

  • It is virtually impossible to control the Internet. Security on the Internet remains an illusion and cannot be created either technically or legally, even if this were desirable. For one, software never offers more than a partial solution. For another, the possibilities for exercising any legal influence are limited because of the global networking of systems and services. Finally, the dominance of some few companies, which has become established, in the meantime leads decision-makers to believe that demanding responsibility from these actors is utopian or irrelevant.
  • The Internet is an infrastructure which in the meantime is so widespread that the areas of our everyday lives in which it is not present are becoming few and far between. Despite this growing online omnipresence, decision-makers do not regard an infrastructure itself as dangerous. Threats do not arise until these structures are used improperly. The application of the costs-by-cause principle means that the user bears the onus of the obligation, not the provider of the service.

Decision-makers recommend education and experience as the tools for secure navigation in the online world to users. At the same time, however, they declare that users do not know what they are doing and consequently have little faith in their ability to protect themselves reasonably.

If, therefore, it is not possible to depend on the competence of users at this time, the question as to what other actors can be expected to assume a greater obligation remains. The primary dilemma is the fact that the decision-makers trust the actors who are supposed to assume responsibility even less. The decision-makers in whom they are more likely to place their trust (e .g. public institutions) are seen to have substantially less responsibility.

A majority of the decision-makers believe that a general legal framework on the Internet is absolutely essential – for one thing, to guarantee freedom on the Internet. While the users are considered to bear the (primary) responsibility, decision-makers still see the need for a general framework within which users can move freely and be assured of having adequate security (e.g. from fraud).

2. Digitalisation is entering the consolidation phase

Digitalisation is regarded as one of the so-called mega-trends, right alongside globalisation and demographic transformation. „Mega“ as used in this context describes not only the duration of this trend, but the broad and diverse range of its effects on the most widely varied areas of our lives as well. It is not surprising that the breathtaking evolvement of new technologies has a major impact on our ways of thinking, living and working. For many years, the focus was on the technological discussions or a simple comparison of opportunities and threats: the Internet was either revolution or danger.

However, recent years in particular have demonstrated that digitalisation has launched a fundamental transformation which has long since passed the scope of straightforward technological changes. Short-lived hype about specific technologies or devices which years ago interested only a small part of society has turned into a dense web of fundamental digital behavioural patterns and essential working technologies, becoming a form of background noise to the reality of our work lives.

Digitalisation has substantial cultural implications because it shapes our everyday lives in manifold ways. The concepts of mobility and communication above all have changed extensively and new opportunities have been created which were still unimaginable only a few years ago. Just how people move around the Net, simultaneously creating their own digital value codex, has long since become an integral component of our life style – no less than hobby, profession or favourite music.

 

3. The Digital Vanguard: the decision-makers of the future?

22 per cent of the decision-makers are classified in the Internet milieu of the Digital Vanguard, who consequently represent the largest of the digital milieus in the decision-maker landscape. Moreover, the Internet milieu of the Digital Vanguard is the fastest-growing one. It does not require a great leap of faith to assume that the influence of this group within the decision-maker landscape will increase.

The members of the Digital Vanguard do not think twice about doing everything on the Internet, and they depend on their personal digital skills to fend off possible threats. Especially the business representatives from this Internet milieu are interested in significantly less „protection“ or influence from institutions and politics. They not only regard the concept of an offline life as obsolete; the one- to-one transfer of principles from the offline to the online world appears just as senseless to them. In their view, many things function completely differently on the Internet which is why new structural systems are arising and continuously evolving. This constant state of flux means that no single actor
„can carve [the systems] in stone“.

It is also obvious that responsibility and trust must be redefined and evaluated. Trust is a substantially less relevant category for the Digital Vanguard when making decisions for or against an online action than it is for other groups. Efficiency and practicality are more important to this group than the reliability of the source or of the provider.

This is where the evident dilemma stands out especially starkly: if the group of digitally accomplished decision-makers (which will continue to grow in the future) questions trust and, in the case of decision-makers from business, even responsibility as criteria and individualises these characteristics as forms of self-obligation and self-assurance – not only for themselves, but as recommendations to users – we face the question of how Internet security solutions which are effective on people’s actions and sustainable can be found.

A look at the entire decision-maker landscape shows that today almost all of them have arrived in the Internet and virtually every single one is online regularly. Almost every other one is a Digital Native; digital everyday life has become established in most of the executive suites. As the Internet has moved into the working world, it has brought with it new technologies, but it has also transformed the fundamental processes of labour organisation and how people see themselves in their professional roles. New requirements for process re-engineering and networking demand management skills in organisations and enterprises, which focus on different areas or are more extensive than those of the past. More and more often, the decisive point is not only to know what is to be done, but also who it is to be done with, i. e. the continuous broadening of networks is becoming more and more signifi- cant as a (knowledge) resource – even in professions and generations in which address book changes are still made at greater time intervals.

A key issue of the future will be the development of the relationship of the Digital Vanguard, who will represent an increasingly larger share of the group of decision-makers because of demographic developments, to established institutions. This group has an especially sharp perception of the amazing sturdiness and power of the Internet resulting from its features of network orientation and essentially consensual governance and regards these features (along with others) as the harbingers of management methods which are clearly distinct from the 20th century models based on institutional structures. This is also in no small degree the explanation for the ebbing trust of this group in conventional institutions.

The need to determine what role institutions, which have „traditionally“ defined general guidelines for infrastructures and ensured compliance with them (e.g. a national system of laws), should and can play on the Internet is becoming urgent, particularly because the Internet has now become an infrastructure for everyone involved in all fields of action and for the populace.

The answer to the question of what balance will be reached between institutions and individuals will be decisive for determining how much room Internet users will retain with respect to the tensions between freedom and security, between trust and control.