How control of the internet is split

I’m three quarters of the way through reading Who Controls the Internet by Tim Wu (yes, that Tim Wu) and Jack Goldsmith. It’s an interesting read that doesn’t require a technical background. It begins with the introduction of DNS back when it was a simple hosts.txt file and touches upon events as recent as the HavenCo post-mortem talk. After what I’ve read so far I do recommend it to internet folklorists, internet law enthusiasts, or anyone who still thinks that the internet is the wild west.

My favourite story is how Jon Postel took over the internet by asking eight maintainers of root DNS servers to stop listening to Network Solutions and instead listen to to his own. He was shortly told to revert the changes and that any similar attempts would result in him being charged. Why did he do it? Was it a simple test, as the official story goes, or was it a way of showing that the US government did not have sole power? Perhaps a protest of the Network Solutions monopoly? Unfortunately he passed on nine months later so we’ll never know.

The short of the book is that every country has some control through pressuring intermediaries within its control. It may be local ISPs, or local subsidiaries. France was able to impose its law on Yahoo by threatening a subsidiary in France. The US DOJ was able to seize domains of sites it couldn’t control because the registrar was located within the US. It’s the same way that multinationals can be threatened by countries they’re located in, and if you don’t have a multinational presence you don’t need to worry. (Note that having your registrar in a country other than your own can count as multinational presence!)

Kieren McCarthy has a fantastic, detailed review. He as a domain expert he explains the strengths and adds a piece about ICANN. What I’d like to add is a context to an offhand comment within the book about Landslide being a purveyor of child pornography. Landslide was instead a payment processor and I believe that they were taken advantage of by fraudsters and are themselves victims. The website Operation Ore Exposed tells the story from Landslide’s point of view.

The book gives a clear view of the complex power structure that governs the internet and proves that cyberspace is dead. What ought to be the next big question? My guess is “who owns your data?”

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