Mary Meeker, the former Morgan Stanley analyst who started her own investment firm Bond Capital in September 2018, released her Internet Trends report for 2019 (copy below) at Vox/Recode’s Code Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 11. She started publishing this report that charts the key digital, technological and visual communication statistics and trends in 1995. The 2019 report highlights different approaches to internet regulation across the world, growth in e-commerce sales, increased internet ad spending, growth in data collection, and emphasises increased content moderation by social media platforms in a bid to fight misinformation. Internet regulation In a comparison of internet regulation across USA, 7 largest economies of EU, India, and China, the report says that India is moderately regulated. Nandan Nilekani's comments on Aadhaar included in the report: 'When a service provider sends an authentication request to Aadhaar (India’s National Identity System), the purpose of the authentication is not revealed; all the government knows is when someone uses his Aadhaar number, not where or why. ... [Aadahaar [sic] shows] India’s approach to the Internet is simple – empower users with the technical & legal tools required to take back control of their data." Globally, fewer people live in countries where internet is completely free compared to 2016. In fact, 33% of the total population live in countries where internet is partly free, while 34% lives in countries where internet is not free. Data collection Data volume grew from ~10 ZB (zeta bytes) in 2015 to ~180 ZB in…
