Internet Studies

 

Who controls the Internet?

 

In module 2 in this unit, we briefly looked at how governments promote and control the use of the Internet in their jurisdiction. In this module, we look at how the future of the Internet as a global phenomenon is controlled. The Internet is quite different to all previous communication media, apart perhaps from speech, since it is much less easy for governments to control and shape its development. Think of print, TV, phone and radio and you can see that governments can exercise a fair degree of control on what is acceptable. With the Internet, governments can have a say, but their control is diminished.

 

 

Esther Dyson, author of ‘Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age’ who is influential in advising on the impact of Internet on society describes Internet governance as the control put in place to manage the growth of the Internet and its usage. Governance is traditionally undertaken by government, but the global nature of the Internet makes it less practical for a government to control cyberspace.  She says:

 

Now, with the advent of the Net, we are privatising government in a new way – not only in the traditional sense of selling things off to the private sector, but by allowing organizations independent of traditional governments to take on certain ‘government’ regulatory roles. These new international regulatory agencies will perform former government functions in counterpoint to increasingly global large companies and also to individuals and smaller private organizations who can operate gloabbly over the Net.

 

Dyson (1998) describes different layers of jurisdiction. These are:

1. Physical space comprising each individual countries where their own laws such as those governing taxation, privacy and trading and advertising standards hold.

2. ISPs – the connection between the physical world and virtual world.

 

There are a number of established non-profit making organisations that control different aspects of the Internet. These are sometimes called ‘supra-governmental’ organisations since their control is above government level. We will explore each of these in turn. As you look at each draw a diagram of Internet architecture which summarises who controls which aspects of the infrastructure.