Evolution and regulation of mobile ecosystems: European information society policies for the mobile search domain

Abstract

After more than a decade of development work and hopes, the usage of mobile Internet has finally taken off. Now, we are witnessing the first signs of evidence what might become the explosion of mobile content and applications that will be shaping the (mobile) Internet of the future. Similar to the wired Internet, search will become very relevant for the usage of mobile Internet. Within the mobile ecosystem framework, this section will discuss if and how intense public action in the mobile search domain should (could) be. Potential actions refer both to 'conventional' and 'non-conventional' regulatory approaches. Public administrations as procurement bodies may leverage services and thus acting as early deployers of applications is an example of a 'conventional' case, while the use of the wealth of public data with high added value in mobile search scenarios would be one of a 'non-conventional' case. The section will present a list of different policy options and analyze their feasibility. These include policy options aimed both at the demand side (user-oriented) and at the supply side (such as innovation-support policies, regulatory policies, industrial-type policies) of mobile search. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.