Eurostat reports indicate that Italy is significantly behind the average of European countries in the use of e-commerce (29% on a European average of 59%) and e-government, understood as online interaction between citizens and public administrations (21% out of a European average of 41%).
According to the Assinform 2013 report, based on data developed by the Milan Polytechnic, the Italian e-commerce market in 2012 in terms of value (9,7 billion; business/consumer exchanges) represents a seventh of the English one (equal to over 60 billion euros), a quarter of the German one and less than half of the French one. More generally, i.e. considering the global market of digital-related products, services and contents (Global Digital Market), the Assinform report indicates a negative trend for Italy in terms of value in the last two years considered (2011 and 2012; about -2% every year) and in any case a relative weight of the same market compared to the domestic product which sees Italy well below the European and world average.
While this situation is worrying, because it shows difficulties in adapting our system to the dynamics imposed on the entire planet by the development of digital-based technologies, on the other hand it also represents a great opportunity and a challenge for growth. In fact, there are certainly important margins for improvement, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, and it is on this that I would like to concentrate with a few brief notations.
The delay in e-commerce first of all corresponds to a delay in the supply of goods and services online by companies. Numerous causes for this situation can be identified, on which it would be possible to act, but a sure impetus towards growth in terms of supply would be provided by legislative and regulatory interventions aimed at a radical simplification of online transactions and related obligations.
For online transactions with final purchasers (consumers/users) of a limited amount, of virtual goods or not, which therefore remain below a certain value threshold, for example, absolute exemption from accounting obligations could be established and fiscal, such as the issuance of an invoice or similar documents. Transactions of modest value that take place online in any case pass through the banking channel, with the effect of recording the individual movements and the possibility of subsequent verification in the event of fiscal or accounting controls, even at the entities managing electronic money. Simplifications of this kind would reduce management costs, which can represent a considerable burden for small and medium-sized companies, without making it impossible to reconstruct the transactions that occurred. However, large companies could remain subject to more stringent regimes, assuming that the very size of their organization still imposes more complex methods of keeping accounts.
The reduction of administrative obligations for transactions below certain thresholds and concerning small and medium-sized companies would also have another effect: the reduction of personal data that it is mandatory to request from final consumers. It has been found that the need to provide such data is one of the main causes of mistrust on the part of users. Ultimately: less data that companies are required to request and maintain; lower management and security costs for networks and databases; less distrust on the part of consumers.
The online payments sector could also be affected by simplifications and incentives, with beneficial effects for e-commerce. Some often wish to impose payments in electronic money, but the correct path seems to be that of incentives. The legislator and the banking institutions themselves should commit themselves to make micropayments and online payments and with bank or virtual electronic money more convenient, addressing not only consumers but also businesses. In this regard, incentive legislative and regulatory measures certainly seem possible.
Even in terms of personal data protection, simplifications and clarifications are possible, without this meaning violating fundamental rights. The topic of personal data is almost always addressed by the media, by opinion leaders and by the legislator in search of easy consent, exclusively from the point of view of the "protection" of people, of protection from the dangers encountered in navigation and in the transmission of data to the companies that collect them. To this dimension of "defense against threats" represented by data processing and the advent of Big Data (a term that unfortunately evokes the Big Brother of Orwellian memory), and which feeds itself on often unjustified fears, should be accompanied by the recognition of the value of data and the use that companies can make of it, also for the benefit of those who supply the data. In the United States, services related to the collection, processing and exchange of personal data represent an economic sector of great importance, in which multinational companies employing tens of thousands of workers operate. In Europe, the processing of personal data is seen as a source of continuous threats to citizens' rights. The strategic and competitive advantage that this resource offers to overseas companies has been lost sight of. A rebalancing of this approach, combined with a simplification of the obligations for companies, already possible with unchanged European and Italian legislation, would help restore the value to data processing that in Italy (but the problem, as mentioned, has European dimensions) it is still denied.
Finally, e-government. In this area too, simplification does not seem to be the watchword, when it should be. Just read the tortuous legislation on digital signatures or the imposition on Italy of the certified electronic mail system, unknown to most of the world. Large-scale interventions are under construction (such as the Digital Identity Public Service), but the sector in which concrete actions already seem possible is that of the digitization and accessibility of the enormous information assets held by the central PA and by the innumerable public sector entities. Also in this case it is a question of becoming aware of the value of data in the information society. A value that is revealed and unfolded by making the resource represented by the data itself in digitized form available to private initiative, without the public hand losing control of it. Data as a common good, to be made accessible through standards that favor interoperability and openness, avoiding the creation of monopolies and closed structures, except to the extent and for the time strictly necessary for the digitization of public assets, when it is intended or forced to place the relative investments at private expense. There is no shortage of regulatory instruments, both European and national, therefore it is necessary that the public administration actually puts itself at the service of this operation, pursuing general interests and with a broad-based vision.
