Internet Governance

Abstract

As the Internet has spread globally, and its economic, political, and cultural influences have increased, it is necessary to develop appropriate policy to govern it, in order to manage and protect it’s presence in our lives. While national governments apply their laws on the Internet, the Internet presents many issues that span national jurisdictions, and therefore requires global governance. Early Internet governance was self-regulatory and involved organizations and a community of users that made decisions through rough consensus. ICANN and the technical issue of domain name and addressing began debates over the issue of Internet governance. Larger issues of Internet governance emerged during the World Summit on the Information Society, whose existence illustrates the shift towards accepting the need for a global, more formal framework of governance. This chapter explores Internet governance and covers the following themes: understanding the challenge of governing the Internet; frameworks and definitions of Internet governance; and the evolution of the Internet governance debate. As there is much disagreement about what Internet governance is, this chapter synthesizes the main issues and debates and provides an overview of Internet governance.