Transcript He who pays the piper…

Internet regulation
International
An issue of ownership
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Who owns your phone company?
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What does your phone company own?
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Who regulates your phone company?
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Why does it regulate it the way it does?
Ownership and the Internet
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Who owns the Internet?
Tough question, two answers:
1.
No one, because the Internet is not a “thing,” it is a collection of
things – it is a “network of networks”
2.
Vital parts of them are owned by key American and multinational
entities, but parts are owned by international organizations or
governments
Root servers – run by several organizations, supervised by ICANN
Backbone
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27.9% - UUNET/WorldCom/MCI 10.0% - AT&T 6.5% - Sprint
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Great Wall of China
The Internet is at its core
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A collection of networks united by
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Protocols (TCP, HTTP, etc)
A system of addressing
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IP address system
Domain Name System
Root Domain Name Servers (master phone books)
The core technologies (IP addresses,
protocols) are not owned by anyone, are in
the public domain
Who runs the Internet
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ICANN
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Responsible with maintaining the Domain Name system
Responsible with maintaining the system by which the
addresses are found (IP addresses)
Settles domain names disputes
Monitors the registrars
Does not “own” the Internet
Other organizations
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IETF and W3 consortium
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Maintain the Internet protocols
IP
Http
CSS
ICANN
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A non-profit organization
Incorporated in the US
Has no power of law
Makes sure technologies are kept neutral
Only means of recourse in case of noncompliance, civil lawsuit (Registerfly
example)
Important concepts
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IP address: allocated by ICANN to Regional
organizations, who distribute them to ISPs
Domain Name: allocated by ICANN to
Registrars, who rent them to consumers
IPv6: a system of addressing that can include
2 to the power of 168 combinations, as
opposed to our current system, that only has
4 billion possible addresses (2 to the power
of 32)
Key organizations
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Registrars: rental agencies for your Domain Names
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Go Daddy
Network Solutions
RegisterFly examples
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Internet Service Providers: Allocate Internet Protocol
numbers (IP addresses)
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Backbone organizations (Tier 1 providers, Global
Crossing)
Who else regulates the
Internet internationally?
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Each national government
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Why?
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Because they can!
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Issues
 What is the Internet?
 Broadcast medium?
 Print medium?
 Oral medium?
Who should regulate the
Internet internationally?
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ICANN – the current “governing” organization
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Is a technical body
Is a non-profit organization incorporated in California
Does not reflect the will of the nations, but of various
activists and policy makers, from all over the world
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Should it be “upgraded”?
Should it become something like ITU (International
Telecommunications Union)?
 The US says NO
 If given too much power such organization could
demand institutionalized censorship
How should it be regulated at the
International level
Market
forces (Epstein and Hazlett)
International
Constitution/Organization
based on a constitutional first amendment
like provision (Noam)
How
much should be left to the national
governments
Yahoo vs. France
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Yahoo sued in France for violating the French
law against Nazi propaganda
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Sale of Nazi memorabilia on Yahoo Auctions
using both .fr and .com domains
Yahoo loses lawsuit: 15 mil and counting
Yahoo sues back in an American court
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France should not regulate content on American
servers, even if content is accessible to people in
other countries
Yahoo vs. France
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American courts reluctant to take up the case
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Can impact Americans abroad
Can impact local legislation
Ultimately, the 9 Circuit Court of Appeals took up the case
and told Yahoo to pay up
Yahoo happy, since the American court accepted
jurisdiction
Fallout: what happens if China decides to forbid
Google from serving pages about democracy?