Have you ever wondered who owns the Internet, or what companies the Internet is composed of? Is it a republic, democracy, anarchy, or what? In this article, we'll find out! Read on!
Summary
A bit deeper
The internet is decentralized, meaning that power, control, and decision-making are spread among many individuals or groups instead of having one central authority in charge.
An analogy
Let's look at it by means of an analogy:
Imagine the internet as a massive highway system that connects people and places all around the world. Just like the highway system, the internet doesn't have a single owner. Instead, it is collectively owned by many entities, just like how highways are owned and maintained by governments, organizations, and private entities. To explain the analogy a bit more, let's look at some of the Internet's features and see how they fit in with our analogy (remember, however, that no analogy is perfect).
Just like highways are owned and maintained by different entities, the internet is governed and regulated by various organizations. Here are some organizations that are involved in the management and operation of the internet and how they fit into our analogy:
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA): Similar to how highways have designated exit numbers and addresses, IANA is responsible for managing the allocation of IP addresses, domain names, and protocol parameters. It ensures that each entity on the internet has a unique identifier.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): ICANN oversees the domain name system (DNS) and ensures that domain names are registered and managed correctly. It coordinates with domain registrars and sets policies for domain name registration.
Regional Internet Registries (RIRs): Just like highways may have regional departments responsible for specific areas, RIRs are organizations that manage the allocation and registration of IP addresses within specific regions. Examples of RIRs include ARIN (North America), RIPE NCC (Europe), APNIC (Asia-Pacific), and LACNIC (Latin America and the Caribbean).
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): This organization develops and promotes internet standards, protocols, and best practices. It plays a crucial role in ensuring interoperability and compatibility across different internet technologies.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): W3C focuses on the development of web standards, including HTML, CSS, and web accessibility. It helps ensure that websites and web applications work consistently across different browsers and devices.
These and countless other organizations collaborate to uphold the framework, guidelines, and oversight of the internet, making it the global platform we rely on today.
Conclusion
In summary, the internet is a global network of interconnected computers that allows communication and sharing of information worldwide. It is a vast network infrastructure that comprises various technologies, protocols, and services.
In terms of distribution, the internet is decentralized and distributed across multiple interconnected networks. These networks, operated by different entities such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs), connect to form the internet backbone. The backbone consists of high-speed connections and routing equipment that facilitate data transmission between different parts of the world.
To ensure redundancy and reliability, the internet utilizes a distributed architecture. Data is broken down into packets and sent across multiple routes, dynamically choosing the most efficient path. This approach allows the internet to adapt to changes in network conditions and maintain connectivity even if certain parts of the network are disrupted.
In summary, the internet is a global network that connects computers worldwide, and its distribution is achieved through a decentralized and distributed architecture, ensuring robustness and connectivity.
To find out more, you must check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance, a very interesting page about this whole subject on Wikipedia.
Be sure to let me know what you think about this article and what you know about the internet in the comments!
Credit to https://www.orangewebsite.com/articles/just-who-owns-the-internet/ for the cover image (actually a Google Image search), and for more intriguing information that helped me research.
If you want to find out more about me, be sure to check out my website, https://the-best-codes.github.io/. Thanks for reading!
Happy coding!
Top comments (15)
The internet is centralized, the governments own it (51% principle). Don't fall for the illusion of anything "free" being decentralized.
Hi Lev, thanks for commenting!
While the government does have control over how the Internet is viewed (e.g., The government in countries like North Korea and China), it doesn't control the internet itself.
Well, if the governments control the content on the internet, couldn't one conclude that the Internet is controlled by the governments? I mean, what's there is to the internet if not content? 🤔
Apart from the dark web, your content can only exist on the servers of the countries, on which it doesn't violate any laws after all, doesn't it?
The Internet is not what it used to be in Web-1 days 😁
They don't control its contents. They control what websites citizens can access in some instances. (Not in free countries). And servers are not owned by the government, but by private companies and individuals.
I will refer you to @bwca 's comment
If you try hosting something, which is illegal in China, while being in China, I am pretty sure something bad will happen, even if you host it on your laptop.
Unless the government cannot control the Internet, cos it's content on your personal laptop 😀
I was it.
If I were in say Iceland, like many secure servers, or in the USA, like GoDaddy, or another safe country, however, it would not be a problem. So some governments can control what their citizens can see, do, or add to the internet, but they can not control the whole internet themselves.
They do control the companies and corporations who control 100% of the clear (e.g not dark) internet’s traffic. aka they own the internet.
As I know, North Korea has its own internet not wired with the global one at all.
Wow! That's crazy! I didn't know that...
I was hoping for deep dive into corporations like Amazon (AWS), Cloudflare, ownership per traffic (Google, Facebook, Bytedance). This would be interesting. Not to mention last Cloudflare accident, or last Amazon Aurora issues when 50% of sites was down.
That sounds interesting… perhaps it could be my next post. I wasn't really what I had in mind with this one.
Thanks for your post.
I would additionally recommend a previous article on the topic by Bert Hubert, who has a quite interesting background in intelligence agencies.
berthub.eu/articles/posts/who-cont...
Awesome, thanks for commenting. I'll be sure to check out that article!