Why We Joined: SpamExperts Supports the US Based Internet Infrastructure Coalition

The following is a guest post from SpamExperts CEO Sam Renkema about why he joined the i2Coalition.

In the business world, it is often said that the Internet has changed everything. According to Internet World Stats, the Internet is used by more than 30% of the world’s population and that number continues to grow. It is almost impossible to imagine our lives without the Internet today. We have all found ourselves in situations when our Internet connection failed or was unreachable for awhile and experienced that feeling of frustration, uselessness, and even fear of something happening in our “absence” from the online world.

From a different perspective, the Internet is still a no man’s (virtual) land, where everybody is free to search, use, add, create, and express opinions. Unfortunately, same as in real life, this is a great opportunity for misuse.

We all seem to have our corner on the Internet, acting independently, while we obviously need some unity. Therefore, the idea of creating a unified voice for the Internet industry became more and more evident. I represent SpamExperts, an Amsterdam based email security solutions provider. Dealing with email sent spam and viruses, we are exposed at first-hand with the huge amount of threats attacking us on the Internet on a daily basis. Moreover, through the range of our products, which includes email archiving, we are familiar with the cumbersome legislation requirements ruling the online medium and electronic data.

During HostingCon 2012 in Boston this year, SpamExperts was invited to the introductory meeting of the i2Coalition. We were thrilled to know that somebody finally took the initiative to create an organization to represent the interests of the Internet industry players. We have chosen to act directly and responsibly and be a founding member of this association.

Although SpamExperts is a non-US based company, we have decided to join as the Internet industry is not geographically bounded and international market standards should be reached and implemented.

We have been following the recent discussions in the EU Commissions about cloud computing and Internet legislation in general. No doubt, great confusion reigns in Europe around data protection laws, which are not uniform around the 27 member countries and are impeding adoption of other Internet related laws. As players in this industry, we decided to be directly responsible.

We strongly believe that by being part of the i2Coalition’s founding members and Advisory Council, as well as being involved in the international policy subcommittee will give us the tools to make our voice heard and contribute to positive public policy goals on a global scale.
The i2Coalition is a great project and we thank the initiators for this. We are now facing the challenging phase of implementing our initial ideas and continuing to reach new heights..

We look forward to working with the more than 42 members of the i2Coalition and hope to continue to welcome new members soon!