resource. Sources of information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4327928.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lcann http://www.wgig.org/index.html http://www.aftld.org/ as a sort of cloud-like entity, owned by nobody and essentially outside any sort of government control.
Well, in some ways it is, but there is a governing body which administers the core addressing svstems of the internet, ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
Any changes that are made to this are approved by the US Commerce Department.
ICANN is a secretive body, theoretically with an open membership. Wikipedia's entry explains this in more detail.
In practice, therefore, the US State still controls the Internet, which after all was created by the US military in the first place as a secure means of communication that would still function after (say) a nuclear war.
ICANN was to gain independence from the US government in September 2006, but it looks like the US government has changed its mind: in July the US said it would "maintain its historic role in authorising changes or http://www.nominet.org.uk/Pab/AboutThePolicyAdvisoryBoard/AboutThePolicyAdvisoryBoard.html For an explanation of some of the alphabet soup, visit http://www.icann.org/faq/ tative root zone file".
In the UK, the administration of the uk "top level" domain is again controlled by a single company, Nominet. The ownership of this body is not clear, but policy advice is in the hands of its "Policy Advisory Board".
This has elected membership chosen by members of Nominet, and also certain appointed members from Companies House (under the auspices of the DITI), the CBI, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (!), the DTI, the Cabinet Office and the AllParliamentary Internet Group.
So this body, while nominally independent, is heavily influenced by capitalist and state organisations. Note the lack of TU representation! General membership costs a stiff £400 initially, then £100 a year!
Similar bodies exist on a transnational basis for control of other top-level domains; e.g. AFTLD, Top Level Domains. Then there is a wnole alpnabel soup bodies that administer various elements of the internet mation, visit the ICANN website (see below). There is a sidebar on the right with links to these bodies.
So why is all this in the news? Well, recently, a UN body, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) has called for the Internet to be run by a UN controlled body instead of the US.
This is in the run-up to a conference, the Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the second phase of which was held in Tunisia in November 2005.
This is to put a plan of action agreed at the first phase, which was held in Geneva in December 2003, into motion.
In the words of the WSIS