Last week, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik was in Davos, Switzerland for the 2011 World Economic Forum. During his time in Davos, Michael participated in multiple panels on the important issues of Internet privacy and cybercrime, and also chatted with experts on global development, the cost of food, energy independence, and dozens of other major world issues.

Before the long flight home to California, Michael took part of his last day in Davos to film a video talking about what he learned at the World Economic Forum and all of the positive discussion he had regarding data privacy and online security. Check out the video below.

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In addition to filming a last-minute Davos Diary, Michael Fertik also shared his thoughts on what he learned at the World Economic Forum in a special column for the Washington Post. Check out Michael’s full article for the Post below.

So what did I learn at Davos? I came here with a mission to represent the needs of privacy and reputation on the Internet and excited about the prospect of the World Economic Forum’s strong interest in cyber security.

This week strongly exceeded my expectations.

CEOs of companies in healthcare, Internet, infrastructure, hardware, software telecommunications and media, together with regulators from the United States and Europe, embraced important ideas including:

- End users should control their personal data.

- Huge revenue streams are possible from novel ways to monetize personal data that also directly compensate consumers for access to their information.

- Companies are increasingly targets of sophisticated organized crime on the Internet.

- Cyber warfare is a real and growing threat to state institutions and businesses.

- Powerful tools are required to solve each of the above.

None of these issues was either on the table or high profile as recently as a year ago. Engagement with them represents a significant achievement for the congress here in Davos and an essential step forward for the private and public interests that depend on their resolution.

This is a constant fight. In most areas of technology, there is an underlying assumption that the device’s functionality is binary: It either works or it doesn’t. You flip the switch, and the light goes on. If it doesn’t, that means that the bulb is out or the circuit breaker needs a quick reboot. You fix it and move on. In other words, in most technical questions, the process of innovation comes down to figuring out how to defeat specific obstacles, defeating them and never having to revisit them. It’s different in cyber security. Threats to digital data appear, reappear, adapt and reappear again. Solutions must adapt as nimbly. On the panel on which I participated this morning, one of my co-panelists referred to it as an arms race. That is a typical and apt analogy.

Threats to privacy and security evolve with blistering speed. That speed is accelerating further with the exponential proliferation of access points to the Internet like smartphones and tablets. Every dinosaur game app you download can (and probably does) access huge amounts of information on your phone that are totally unrelated to the actual functioning of the game. A simple game app can mine your phone numbers, emails, addresses, calendar and geo-location. In the anti-virus field, they call that a Trojan horse. When it comes to social media, though, the public still just thinks of it as a game. But that game can compromise you, your family, or your company.

I am leaving Davos encouraged. The work remains. It always remains. But the will is there.

On Friday in Davos, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik moderated a panel on personal data privacy. Today at the World Economic Forum, Fertik participated in another tech panel, this time focused on the issue of cybercrime and cybersecurity.

During the panel, noted Internet and security experts talked about the growing threat of sophisticated cybercriminals and how cybercrime and cyberwarfare is a new reality of the Internet age. More important than acknowledging the problem, however, was acknowledging the solution to the problem: a powerful alliance between government and business leaders that focuses on prevention, and also on adapting quickly to new threats.

Michael Fertik will be sharing additional notes on this panel later today, and we will have them here for you on the Reputation.com Blog. In the meantime, follow Michael on Twitter for last-minute insights into the closing days of Davos.

Today in Davos, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik joined fellow World Economic Forum Tech Pioneers Trip Adler from Scribd and Jose Ferreira from Knewton in the Social Media Corner to chat with Facebook’s Director of Market Development Randi Zuckerberg.

The trio talked about their impressions of the World Economic Forum and their respective “Davos” moments. They also talk about the various sessions they’ve attended at the Forum, and how each of their companies is embracing social media technology to enhance its products and services.

Check out the segment below:

In between moderating panels on Internet privacy and writing dispatches for the Harvard Business Review, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik recently took time out of his visit to the World Economic Forum to analyze the numerous privacy enhancements that Internet companies have made to their browsers in recent weeks.

In a piece for Fortune.com titled “Browsers get more (but not enough) privacy,” Fertik talks about recent announcements from Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google to provide enhanced privacy protection tools to their respective browsers. While applauding the decision to deliver increased privacy controls, Fertik warned that these efforts are not enough to provide holistic privacy protection for consumers and that government involvement is likely.

Quoting from the article:

First, government does have a role to play when it comes to protecting personal digital privacy. Just by discussing “Do Not Track” measures, American regulators have clearly influenced decision-making by the largest browser makers in the world. The government’s light, non-invasive discussion has raised the bar for what is a best practice in the industry, and the private sector is responding and rising to the occasion.

Second, some light changes to policy do not spell the end of freedom, speech, information, or innovation on the Internet. It is an often-repeated canard that any change at all to existing advertising practices will kill “innovation” (a code word for “revenue” used by technology companies who are aware that some members of Congress will grow wide-eyed if they hear that “innovation” is under threat) on the Internet.

It’s not true.

Plenty of governments protect digital privacy more than the U.S. does. And there is a lot of Internet activity in those areas. Small, incremental changes in the law do not harm innovation; in fact, they usually furnish new and interesting opportunities for even more innovation.

Third, business leaders and policymakers are on to something. The American public — like the public in other countries — is increasingly clamoring for tools and measures to protect their privacy.

For more insights on Davos, follow along with Michael Fertik on Twitter, or check out the Reputation.com blog for all of our World Economic Forum coverage to date.

Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik has been sharing regular updates from the World Economic Forum in Davos via his Twitter account, but if you’re looking for more than 140 characters of insight, the place to go is the Harvard Business Review.

Michael has already written two articles for the Harvard Business Review (a Beginner’s Guide to Davos and a Day One Davos Recap) and today he has shared two more. Because of the time difference between Davos and the United States, both Michael’s Day Two Davos recap and Day Three Davos recap were published this morning. Check out the full text from both below.

Day Two Davos Dispatch

The World Economic Forum is in full swing. Thursday is the “Governors” Day, which means that key industry sectors, and especially key leaders from those sectors, are spending the day together in deep discussion on the direction of their fields.

Meanwhile, there has been a huge amount of discussion in the hallways, and a number of sessions, about socially responsible work. There seems to have been something of an uptick even since last year in the amount of attention being paid to these topics.

In particular, talk of food prices has been gaining momentum. The most moving moment I’ve had so far while in Davos was when I turned on the BBC a couple of nights ago and watched a fisherman in an African country respond to a question by a reporter. The journalist asked “what would you like to say to the people meeting in Davos?” He said, quite simply, “please bring down the price of food.”

If you care about nearly any topic on the global agenda, there is something here for you. Right now, as I write this, I’m sitting in the Partners Lounge in the Congress Center. Tables are in short supply, so I’m sharing one with two guys from the healthcare nonprofit space. They are having a wide-ranging policy and science discussion about AIDS. They’re in the fight. It’s awesome to hear.

Day Three Davos Dispatch

I’m sitting here in the Partners Lounge on the Mezzanine Level of the Congress Center. As usual, seats are in short supply, so I grabbed the first one I could find. It turns out I’m sitting next to three editors of one of the largest news magazines in the world. They are deep in conversation, so I type away for a while. Then they reach a pause and ask what I do. It turns into a 60-minute conversation. Pretty soon they’re deep into sharing their points of view of social media, the Tunisian revolution, the democratization of the world, the essential frailties of China, the essential strengths of (most of) the West, and the wisdom (in their view) of reducing fiscal deficits immediately rather than later.

The conversation takes a more urgent turn when Morgan Tsvangirai, the much-abused and -suffering Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, sits down three feet away at the next table.

And then the head of a huge bank sits down right next to us. And then the CEO of a huge biotech on the other side. It’s crazy.

It continues. Now I’m talking with Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN and author of How, whom I’ve gotten to know through the WEF. I am listening to him share his comprehensive findings — soon to be released — on the power of values-based, self-governing corporate cultures as a driver of sustainable growth, innovation, and resiliency.

Here’s the totally essential and not-to-be-missed point: Listening to the conversations all around you, and participating in a few, it becomes clear that the meetings here are not just to say hello and catch up and enjoy being on the scene. The people in room are engaging in hard conversation all around you. They are grappling with the topics of food, health, finance, commerce, privacy, security, democracy, and war.

Let’s hope that the conversations translate into action, and that their best aspirations are filled.