recently been made to address the conduct of the new market players that are gaining importance in the e-commerce ecosystem.As policy-makers and regulators seek to drive broadband adoption, they have rightly concluded that online consumer protection will be an important part of ensuring trust and security in the online world. From this perspective, three main trends are important to keep in mind. First, and most obviously, the use of online services is growing rapidly in both developed and developing countries, although developed countries still have more users. This growth is also broad-based, as digital consumers are increasingly using online services for a variety of purposes, including simply searching for information, shopping online, downloading and streaming music and video, playing games and using other (mobile) apps, keeping up with friends on social media and often storing information in the cloud. For each of these activities, users have particular needs or concerns that policy-makers may have to address—in addition to the cross-cutting issue of how the data consumers generate will be used. Second, the online world tends to be dominated by only a handful of large players (e.g., Google, Microsoft and Facebook), each of which controls a large part of their individual markets. Finally, advertising and the collection of user data is driving many of the business models that are being developed for the online world. Each of these trends will put pressure on governments to act to protect their users.Given these considerations, this chapter identifies a number of cross-cutting regulatory issues that policy-makers, regulators and industry should address to ensure that digital consumers are protected.Chapter 6: The economic influence of data and their impact on business models An increasing number of devices that collect and transmit data have been improving access to information. New data transport, storage and analysis procedures have been enabling more and more businesses to utilize data in their business models. This indicates a trend towards data collection and use becoming a new driver of economic growth. In light of this development, this chapter first traces the evolution of business models built around data, and discusses the evidence for a sustained structural change in our markets; leading to a data-driven economy that policy-makers and regulators need to be alert to. To focus the analysis, a structural approach to analyze this emerging economy and its development is devised: the data value circle. When the data value circle is applied to analyze the market size and prospects for each of its parts, three important characteristics of the data-driven economy emerge. First and foremost, the analysis underlines the fact that data’s economic influence stretches across almost all sectors. Second, it is found that the data-driven economy is shaped by two-sided markets that seem prone to create dominant positions, and thus markets should be monitored by policy-makers and regulators, especially since; third, the analysis indicates that it is still uncertain which players will emerge as the most powerful. This last finding merits a closer investigation of business models, strategic options and emerging challenges in the data-driven economy. Thus, this chapter analyses five key value propositions and surrounding business models: (1) mobile device ecosystems; (2) connectivity; (3) cloud services and content delivery networks; (4) targeted online advertising; and (5) video streaming. From these five models, the strategic options of market players and emerging challenges for all stakeholders are identified. Finally, the chapter sketches potential avenues for policy-makers and regulators in response to the following challenges: addressing dominance, monitoring partnerships, protecting consumers and establishing a global approach. Chapter 7: Monitoring the Implementation of Broadband Plans and Strategies Measurable information about the supply and use of broadband services provides a basis for judging whether broadband plans and digital strategies are achieving the objectives that have been set. This chapter reviews the principles of performance monitoring, examines the increasingly broad scope of broadband plans and discusses how the implementation of broadband plans and strategies can be Trends in Telecommunicaiton Reform 2015 xiii