Good policy in a few key areas can have a significant impact on e-friction and can speed the development of Internet use and individual countries’ Internet economies.

#1 Policies that promote investment, especially in infrastructure, are essential.

#2 Policy responses that fail to take into account how quickly technologies and the innovations they enable are evolving can be the sources of more, rather than less, friction.

#3 A significant issue of trust with respect to the use of personal data inhibits online interaction in many markets. Since the Internet is a global phenomenon, this is a global issue, and it cries out for a comprehensive, global solution.

The continued growth of the digital economy depends on limiting Internet friction and fragmentation.

#1 Most current sources of friction originate at the national or local level.

#2 Policymakers in some countries are debating the extent to which certain elements of digital infrastructure, commerce, discourse, and interaction should be brought under greater government control.

#3 Precisely because the Internet is a global network of networks, the potential is significant for uncoordinated policy to add major new sources of friction.