

Internet governance

In praise of chaos

Governments’ attempts to control the internet should be resisted

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Readers' comments



Internet is the most important thing that happened in the planet after Gutemberg...its potencial is huge..is changing behaviors.....

Governments, many with incompetents and corrupts, should not in any way control anything .....in fact I strongly believe with 40 years experience in Data Processing and Computer Science that technolgy will win this battle against govenments...Knowledge is our God..and the NET is providing that to mankind at a extremely low cost...


Icann deals mostly with very technical matters, and if you go to their meetings (they're open) you will easily see that everyone on the floor is at the top of his/her game. Geeks, nerds, all no-nonsense people, who can't stand a diplomat's crap for more that ten seconds.

The same is even more true for the IETF, whose technical decisions are still named RFCs, or Request For Comments, and the golden rule is "rough consensus and running code".

It works. It's been working for three decades.

The ITU, on the other hand, takes years to come up with new standards, is filled with government officers and suit-and-tie diplomats who now wish to impose their modus operandi on the internet's most basic infrastructure.

Don be fooled, this is an attempt by governments (especially those who have a lot to fear from the internet) to control it, and the ITU is simply trying to have a role in a world where its historical function is increasingly irrelevant.


The first thing on any dictators agenda is to control the media. Seize the broadcast stations and smash the printing presses. The internet is ethereal they can't seize it physically, so they want to cripple it.


The internet has anything and everything on it to use for reference. If governments were to take total control of the Internet, then they would censor anything that is against their views and ideologies (this is already true in many countries). They do not want the people that they rule to see ideas that are against the government because it could give the opportunity for the people to protest/rebel/etc. People should be allowed to converse their own views and thoughts however they want to. Of course, the people cannot take advantage of the freedom that the internet has. For example, cyberbullying has become a major issue in the past few years. Hate speech and libel towards others is unethical and wrong, and that is where the government should place restrictions. But in the end, the Internet is a huge cyberworld and it would be very hard to control the many things people do and say on the internet.


The internet has become a global phenomenon. Although it is a tad chaotic, this chaos is not bad in anyway. Instead it is somewhat good because it there are over two billion are ‘plugged in.’ This article talks about censorship of internet and I think that no matter how hard countries work to censor certain things on the internet, it will never work. There will always be ways to get around the blocked pages. Although there could be supervision, it would never be to the point where the government of a country decides what is and is not censored. With the advanced domains, censorship will be even harder. Time will tell how the internet is dealt with.


That's pretty awesome. Control of domain and domain names will clean up a lot of problems on the internet and organize the monster a bit better. Let's be honest though, no one will ever be able to control the internet, at least not in our lifetime. People can create websites from their phones these days and things are moving increasingly faster. They can't even shut down "pirate bay" right now where people constantly can download almost any document, track, game, or movie.

Genghis Cunn

My comment on the companion piece applies here too:
"Who should run the internet?" Definitely not the UN or a government bureaucracy. It's doing fine as it is, whatever problems may arise, there can be no presumption that government involvement would do anything but exacerbate them. The Economist once noted (17/2/96) that “The skills of government in addressing market failure are often exaggerated. Government intervention must overcome three formidable difficulties: the tendency of regulated firms to “capture” their regulators, weak incentives for efficiency within the public sector, and missing information (where markets lack it, governments are likely to lack it as well). … The record of intervention is poor … history suggests that the burden of proof should lie with those who would extend the government’s role.” I would say that that's even more true now than it was 15 years ago.


You omit to mention that the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) gets signed into law in many countries 1 October.

It is a treaty, negotiated in secret, begins to control the Internet under the guise of copyright law.


Governments should not try and control the internet. It is one of the few places that is completely free of control. It is mostly just human ingenuity and thoughts all being passed around. If the internet was controlled it would suffer greatly. I also do not think that, at least for a long time, governments could have any control. There are to many smart souls out there that will get around blocks and rules and then show the rest of the world how too. It would not be an easy thing to do. Maybe have governments just monitor certain activities, but who is to say they are not already doing that heavily.The internet has a mind of its own and will not be controlled.

Steve Estes

I respectfully disagree that the forthcoming deregulation of top-level domains by ICANN represents a threat to anyone, including governments. Governments which choose to can (and currently do) censor the Internet as they see fit. But in places that purport to respect freedom of speech, the new TLDs represent democratization and enhanced consumer choice. .COM is saturated; with 90 million domains, no new entrant to the Internet can find a home with meaningful brand value in their address. The only solution for the Internet to maintain its usefulness and steady growth is to expand the name spaces within which people can brand themselves and choose an address to call home. .COKE and .DISNEY are not going to be high-demand locales, but what about more expressive, meaningful terms? .BLOG, .SHOP, .NEWS, .SPORT, even .SUCKS or .ROCKS would give people new worlds to populate. There are protections in place to protect IP. Who cares what they cost to their host registries, I say, if it increases competition and choice for consumers.


No tool created by man will have such overarching power to unite the nations of the world under ONE Symbol like the Internet. It will bear the face of Mankind to every human being...and link all unique biometrics into a pattern with everlasting implications for human identity. Presently, a committee is sifting and screening all elements in what will become the living FACE of the Net... the unique persona (synthetic)to which all humans will look for guidance and prosperity. It will have the face of a man, but the heart/brain of a beast. Bovine/pig mutations will provide a living platform for neural networks that will circle the globe and link to space platforms and data processing facilities on the far side of the moon. Yup. All in THIS century. The big change is about to happen. It will begin in 2012.


"Imagine if the ITU, .... had been put in charge of the nascent global network"
no need to imagine. They where.
Most the IETF standards mirror ITU standards (e.g. email - smtp - X.400). But, indeed, the standards formation process wasn't agile or fast enough and their core approach to networking (connection oriented, operator controlled telecoms) was inappropriate for their own internetworking objectives - although it worked well in places... ITU domain names would have been big-endin', so we'd now be browsing at com.economist.www which was much more sensible.
2/10 for journalistic research, there.


The internet is as huge as the world itself, and the ideas it hosts are as diverse as the people who live on it. To control internet content would be for a few people to find a way to control billions. The billions would not be pleased.
Any attempts of the government to seize control of the internet and its content will eventually fail. There's always going to be someone who will say no and find away around blocks and bans.

As for government desires to regulate ICANN decisions, I seriously doubt removing or disallowing certain domain names is going to change a thing about the contents of the internet. (By that, I mean there's absolutely no way it will.) People will just relocate the site.


Over the past decade the internet usage all over the world has increased dramatically and will with the increase in population and economy in some countries. In the 10-20 years, i feel that the certain stakeholders will start selling their mass stocks to countries that have booming economies. With China's economy booming at a fast rate, i feel that there might be a monopoly when it comes to the internet.

1 man problem I feel that internet has tarnished in the past, is the amount of advertisements that appear. I understand you need third party payers to pay for some of these sites but I feel security is lacking. With pop ups coming up everywhere, I feel like they are all scams to get your information.

Connect The Dots

Control the Internet is not the same as Monitoring the Internet.

Free speech prevails on the internet, for good or evil.

The US Government in addition to controlling name domains, has special tools to monitor and track potential terrorists, scam artists, and web based saboteurs. It can track location, monitor for key words, monitor chatter, monitor email, and link commerce, business fronts, and social networks of conspirators.

It is probably the single greatest factor why there has never been a successful followup attack since 9/11.

And this role of sheriff is under appreciated but necessary.

Anonymous may be an Antique Concept.


"But sometimes chaos, even one that adherents like to claim somewhat disingenuously is a “multi-stakeholder” approach, is not disastrous: the internet mostly works."

I wonder if you'll still feel that way after reading Foreign Policy's recent article on cyberwar and cyberterrorism.


I think that governments should have at most a minimal say in the internet. However, I don't think that it's honest to make a argument for lack of control based on the internet's growth early on. As the internet continues to grow, some government intervention will likely be necessarily. I just hope that regulation doesn't come in the form of censoring.


The Internet needs to be free from government control. Its growth has been pivotal to the technology age's economy and if it is to continue to be that way, it is best to be left alone from the dirty hands of government which would just slow its growth


Internet is the ultimate arena for freedom of speech, and for free flows of information wherever from whoever. The urge of various governments to control the Internet is easily understandable, some of which are perhaps innocuous. Still I think controlling the Internet will produce more negative than positive impact in the world as a whole. An analogy in American domestic politics: when the Whitehouse stonewalls itself from the press, or tries to shape the coverage of certain events, it may well be, in some instances, in the best interest of the country's strategic interest. Nevertheless, as a society, it is vital to counter such attempts and to have the social power structures in place to maximally promote transparency, individual liberty and to minimize power concentration (information is power) in various forms.


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