Sub­mit­ted text

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is ins­truc­ted to exami­ne the per­spec­ti­ves of Web 3.0, the eco­no­mic oppor­tu­ni­ties for Switz­er­land and the pos­si­bi­li­ties of pro­mo­ting our values in it within the frame­work of a study.

The web is curr­ent­ly high­ly cen­tra­li­zed. The rise of block­chain tech­no­lo­gy could chall­enge GAFA’s domi­nan­ce and enable a shift of power in favor of Inter­net users and new play­ers. The block­chain poten­ti­al is so gre­at that it could allow Euro­pe and Switz­er­land to regain influence on the Inter­net. We are at a cru­cial stage: now is the time to act.

The stu­dy aims to out­line the chal­lenges of Web 3.0; defi­ne our stra­tegy regar­ding Web 3.0 and block­chain (Switz­er­land is among the top three world­wi­de); iden­ti­fy the com­pe­ten­ci­es requi­red; exami­ne whe­ther public block­chains need to be crea­ted; eva­lua­te what we are wil­ling to do to pro­tect pri­va­cy, ensu­re fai­rer com­pe­ti­ti­on, and dis­tri­bu­te power more equi­ta­b­ly: three pro­mi­ses of Web 3.0.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

Block­chain tech­no­lo­gy could revo­lu­tio­ni­ze the under­ly­ing struc­tu­re of the Inter­net. Vir­tual­ly infal­lible in terms of secu­ri­ty, it could fun­da­men­tal­ly chan­ge the way data is exchanged.

Today, infor­ma­ti­on is the main thing cir­cula­ting on the Inter­net. Tomor­row, it could be things of value: voting rights, finan­cial secu­ri­ties, real estate hol­dings, depo­sits wit­hout a bank account.

Blockchain’s secu­ri­ty lock role can be com­bi­ned with cus­to­mi­zed and auto­ma­ted data manage­ment, allo­wing every Inter­net user to dis­c­lo­se only the data that is real­ly neces­sa­ry for an online ser­vice (tra­vel agen­cy, insurer, search engi­ne, social net­works). Users would no lon­ger sup­p­ly infor­ma­ti­on to “Big Data” wit­hout their knowledge.

Block­chain makes it pos­si­ble to rai­se funds, ICO (Initi­al Coins Offe­rings), to which ever­yo­ne has access – simi­lar to crowd fun­ding, except that each and every con­tri­bu­tor recei­ves a “coin” that can be traded on a block­chain plat­form. Each buy­er and con­tri­bu­tor will be inte­re­sted in sup­port­ing the start­up with their own net­work to make it known, becau­se if it suc­ce­eds, the value of the coin will increa­se. A rever­se net­work effect and a bet­ter sha­ring of value crea­ti­on will be the result.

The­se few examp­les show that the advent of Web 3.0 could make it pos­si­ble to return to the ori­gi­nal spi­rit of the Inter­net, an Inter­net whe­re ever­yo­ne can move and express them­sel­ves freely.

State­ment of the Fede­ral Coun­cil of 15.8.2018

The term “Web 3.0” is asso­cia­ted in the lite­ra­tu­re with the con­cept of the “seman­tic web”. This enables com­pu­ters on the Inter­net to under­stand, inter­pret and rela­te con­tent crea­ted by humans. For exam­p­le, it is pos­si­ble for a com­pu­ter to distin­gu­ish bet­ween the term “jagu­ar” and a cat or a brand of car, depen­ding on the con­text. A query can be rese­ar­ched and pro­vi­ded by the user in a decen­tra­li­zed man­ner and wit­hout the help of lar­ge Inter­net plat­forms such as Goog­le, Ama­zon, Face­book, etc. The user can also use the infor­ma­ti­on pro­vi­ded by the com­pu­ter. Arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence appli­ca­ti­ons are also fre­quent­ly used in this pro­cess. The use of block­chain can sup­port the deve­lo­p­ment of Web 3.0 appli­ca­ti­ons due to the decen­tra­li­zed approach.

As the Fede­ral Coun­cil sta­ted in its respon­se to the Moti­on 17.3818 “Making Switz­er­land a world cen­ter of block­chain tech­no­lo­gy,” he detail­ed, he has with his Digi­tal Switz­er­land Stra­tegy has a sui­ta­ble instru­ment for ensu­ring that Switz­er­land can con­sist­ent­ly exploit the oppor­tu­ni­ties offe­red by digi­tizati­on in all are­as of life. The stra­tegy is curr­ent­ly being fur­ther deve­lo­ped in dia­log with busi­ness, sci­ence, rese­arch and civil socie­ty. For exam­p­le, in the cour­se of the ongo­ing update of the stra­tegy, it is being exami­ned whe­ther a working group should be set up to cla­ri­fy issues rela­ting to arti­fi­ci­al intelligence.

With regard to block­chain tech­no­lo­gy, the Fede­ral Coun­cil, in its respon­se to Moti­on 17.3818, has alre­a­dy cal­led for the estab­lish­ment of a Working group under the direc­tion of the Sta­te Secre­ta­ri­at for Inter­na­tio­nal Finan­cial Mat­ters. This took up its work on Janu­ary 18, 2018 and will review the legal frame­work and iden­ti­fy any need for action. A cor­re­spon­ding report for the atten­ti­on of the Fede­ral Coun­cil should be available by the end of 2018.

At the inter­na­tio­nal level, the decen­tra­lizati­on of the Inter­net is the sub­ject of dis­cus­sions on glo­bal digi­tal gover­nan­ce. Switz­er­land is actively invol­ved in the­se pro­ce­s­ses. In ful­fill­ment of the Postu­la­tes 17.3789 “Switz­er­land should be able to beco­me the epi­cen­ter of inter­na­tio­nal digi­tizati­on gover­nan­ce”, the Fede­ral Coun­cil is pre­pa­ring a report on Switzerland’s acti­vi­ties in this area by the end of 2018. The report is inten­ded to show what Switz­er­land has alre­a­dy done and intends to con­ti­n­ue doing. The focus is par­ti­cu­lar­ly on inter­na­tio­nal Geneva.

In the area of stan­dar­dizati­on, the Con­fe­de­ra­ti­on is also fol­lo­wing the ongo­ing work, for exam­p­le within the frame­work of the Inter­na­tio­nal Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on Uni­on (ITU‑T). It should be noted that deve­lo­p­ments are not yet far enough advan­ced to have a direct impact on Switzerland.

As few con­cre­te results can yet be deri­ved from the deve­lo­p­ment in the area of Web 3.0 and the deve­lo­p­ment is still unclear, the Fede­ral Coun­cil is of the opi­ni­on that the pre­pa­ra­ti­on of a report should be dis­pen­sed with at present.