Questions about who can (and should) control the Internet have always been a problem, but these questions have increased in quantity and polarization in recent years. As the Internet becomes more and more a central part of the lives of everyone on the planet, stakeholders have developed many different opinions on how cyberspace should be governed — should there be more government intervention? Less? Should it be run by a single country, or many? Furthermore, as the Internet gains a wider and wider footprint, conflicts are arising all around. Should “amazon.com” belong to the U.S.-based company, or should it belong to the agencies that manage the South American rainforest? The culmination of all of these things results in a complex and contentious field of cyberpolitics.
Author:
Samantha Bradshaw, Laura DeNardis, Fen Osler Hampson, Eric Jardine and Mark Raymond