BSA & Galexia Global Coud Computing Scorecard (2016) - Galexia Analytics Release

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2016 Rank 2. United States - Score: 82.36 | Change from 2013 Score: +2.64 - Rank: +1

The United States has comprehensive and up-to-date laws for e-commerce, electronic signatures, and cybercrime.

The US has signed and implemented the Convention on Cybercrime and plays a leading role in the investigation of global cybercrime.

Although no general privacy laws are in place, the US does have some useful sectoral privacy laws and an active regulator. There is ongoing debate and reform in the US regarding the balance between national security surveillance and privacy protection.

Intellectual property protection in the United States remains mixed. The US has signed all of the relevant international agreements, and a strong enforcement culture is in place. However, multiple conflicting court decisions leave considerable legal uncertainty about what constitutes an online copyright breach.

The United States is an active participant in international standards development processes and an advocate of free trade and harmonization. The US recorded a significant improvement in the free-trade section of the report, as it continued to remove barriers to international information technology (IT) interoperability.

The United States has high levels of Internet use, but access to fast broadband remains patchy. The National Broadband Plan has a goal that by 2020 at least 100 million households will have download speeds of 100 Mbps and upload speeds of 50 Mbps. Not all parts of the plan have been adopted or fully funded, however significant parts of the plan have been implemented.

Overall, the United States improved its ranking by one place to 2nd through a combination of positive policy developments and improved IT infrastructure.

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