News Story

European Consumers and Web 3.0: Fair Consumer Services supported by the Future Internet and Semantics

John Domingue, Friday 19 Mar 2010

Yesterday was the first day of an EU Commission lead Consumer Summit which incorporated extensive content on Web 3.0. The overall focus of the Summit, opened by Mr. John Dalli, European Commissioner for Health and Consumers, was on services for consumers and in particular on access, fairness and choice. Specifically, the Summit aimed to develop input to European Policy on services examining the area from different angles, by bringing together consumers, consumer advocates, business, and policy makers. The event, attended by 450 participants from industry and policy bodies, was split into six workshops one of which was "Web 3.0 – Challenges and Opportunities for Consumers in the Internet of the Future". This stream was chaired by Mr. Ken Ducatel, Head of Unit "Lisbon Strategy and i2010" in DG Information Society and Mr. Thomas Kramler, Deputy Head of Unit "Antitrust: IT, Internet and Consumer Electronics" in DG Competition. Participants in the workshop covered a diverse set of organizations including: Microsoft (who talked about their "long-term relationship" with the EU Commission), Google, Nokia, the Ministries of Economy and Social Affairs for a number of European States, the European Parliament, National Representatives to the EU, and consumer council representatives from Denmark, Germany, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. KMi’s role for the event included the opening Keynote talk for the Web 3.0 stream given by John Domingue and the use of our Future Internet video (produced within the Service Web 3.0 project) within the main plenary after John Dalli’s opening speech.