.
across borders in order to cope with the global nature of the data-driven economy. Section 6.2 traces the development of technical innovations and business models in general that have led to the data-driven economy as we see it today. Section 6.3 develops the data value circle as a conceptual approach to understanding the structural framework of the data-driven economy. It allows a more in-depth understanding of the individual segments of the economy, as well as their interrelations, and also provides an initial analysis of the value of the data-driven economy; exploring the market size and development for each segment in the structure. Section 6.4 selects several key value propositions and their surrounding business models from the data-driven economy for in-depth analysis. In that section, the emphasis is put on the profitability and potential strategic options these business models enable, as well as the challenges that may emerge from these options for both participants in the data-driven economy, policy-makers and regulators. Finally, section 6.5 pulls together the insights gained, summarises the challenges that may emerge and sketches approaches for future policies and regulation in light of the anticipated strategic behaviour of stakeholders in the data-driven economy. 6.2 The evolution of the data-driven economy This section traces how technical innovations have made it possible to collect, analyse and utilize ever increasing volumes of data, and how this has triggered a process of structural change in the economy building on data as the driver of economic growth. Starting with the first computers and early networks, the evolutionary paths to a data-driven economy can be split into four phases that revolve around the evolution of the World Wide Web: • Phase 1: The commercialisation of the World Wide Web Access to data has gone through significant changes during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, mainly due to the invention of the computer. As soon as the 1960s, early forms of computer networks developed, which can be considered the predecessors of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The latter began to evolve in the early 1990s. At first, the few websites that existed usually provided information from public institutions or followed largely altruistic motives. The commercialisation of the Internet commenced with the Global Network Navigator (GNN), which was the first site that generated revenues through online advertising. The dominant trend at that time, however, was to transfer traditional brick-and-mortar business models into the online world. For instance, Amazon and eBay started their online presences in 1995.• Phase 2: The “seek and find” growth phase of the World Wide Web With the amount of data available on the World Wide Web increasing dramatically over the ensuring years – the number of websites increased from 10,000 in 1994 to 650,000 in 19971 – a need was created for a more convenient way to navigate the web as compared to the ever more crowded directories common at that time. This led to the first business that can be considered data-driven in the sense of the present analysis, i.e. search engines. Their main purpose was to offer users a free, quick and reliable way of finding their way through the Internet. On the other hand, they were able to sell online advertising to businesses that soon was individualised by adapting to the keywords a user entered in the search field. Thus, it offered much better targeting than other forms of advertising. To improve their service to businesses that pay for these advertisements, search engines providers have started to collect more and more data about their users. In essence, data have become the pivot of their business models today. They need to be able to analyse large volumes of data quickly so that they can provide a satisfactory search service and match the online advertising accordingly. On the other hand, they have to collect, analyse and understand data about consumer behaviour to offer the most competitive service to their paying customers.• Phase 3: The “always on” growth phase of the World Wide Web The advent of broadband connections and flat rate charges in the 2000s increased the 154 Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2015