Who Controls the Internet?

Graeme Williams writes " Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World is a frustrating book. You'll stumble across something on every second page which will infuriate you, but it's also true that almost every page discusses an important legal case, raises an interesting question, or presents an important problem. By describing recent Internet cases and the international legal environment in which they have been resolved, Goldsmith and Wu have illuminated an area which deserves clear and systematic analysis. But the Internet is not a unitary thing to be controlled, and the authors don't clearly distinguish its various protocols and services." Read the rest of Graeme's review. Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World author Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu pages xii + 226 publisher Oxford University Press rating 4 reviewer Graeme Williams ISBN 0195152662 summary An excellent question with an imperfect answer

Disclaimer: This is a book about the law. I'm not a lawyer, although I am an Australian living in the United States who has sent email from China, all of which are relevant to this book.

Goldsmith and Wu's focus and principal conclusion is (p 180): "What we have seen, time and time again, is that physical coercion by government — the hallmark of a traditional legal system — remains far more important than anyone expected.". The situations and cases in Who Controls the Internet? clearly prove their point. They demonstrate that national laws are important to large companies like Yahoo!, but I don't think they prove their case with respect to individuals on the Internet.

The first part of the book, "The Internet Revolution", does an excellent job summarizing the early development of the Internet, including the extravagant claims of the early Internet and the Internet boom. People said some crazy things. Did John Perry Barlow really write (p 20), "I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind". Ouch!

The authors put a lot of emphasis on the importance of control of the root authority, but I'm not convinced. It's true that the the right to register domain names within a particular top-level domain (like .com or .tv) means that one company rather than another will make a lot of money, and it's certainly important to countries like Burindi how much of the revenue from its .bi domain they keep, but what about this from later in the book (p 168):

For the Net to work — for computers all over the world to be able to communicate with one another — the root authority must reliably correlate IP addresses with domain names and uniquely match up both with a particular computer.

It seems to me that Goldsmith and Wu are confusing the legal authority with the technical mechanism behind the domain name system. Computers all over the world communicate using IP addresses. Domain names are an important convenience, but only a convenience. Also, I'm not sure the authors appreciate the role of local (ISP) DNS resolvers as a cut-out between the user and the root. If the United States government turned off the root server, Comcast has a big financial incentive to make sure that my service isn't interrupted.

As lawyers, Goldsmith and Wu do an excellent job summarizing some important legal cases. On October 20, 2000, Barron's published, on a web site in New Jersey, an article accusing an Australian billionaire, Joseph Gutnick, of tax evasion and money laundering. Gutnick sued Barron's in Australian court and won. Comparing the libel laws of the US and Australia, Goldsmith and Wu say (pp151 - 152):

It reflects deeper disagreements between the United States and Australia about the processes that best secure truth, and about the relative value of robust speech versus reputation and uninhibited debate versus order.

When did uninhibited debate become the polar opposite of "order"? In the US, the libel laws are limited by the First Amendment. In Australia, the libel laws are limited by what the people in power think they can get away with. It's perfectly reasonable to compare the libels laws of the United States with those in Australia, but it doesn't make sense to assume that the differences reflect something intrinsic about the preferences of the people in each country.

On page 158, Goldsmith and Wu summarize their agreement with the outcome of Gutnick:

Since Barron's chose to continue to do business in Australia, its consumers in the United States and Japan cannot legitimately expect to receive news from Barron's that runs afoul of Australian law.

But earlier in the book (p 1!), they discuss a suit in French court against Yahoo's auction site for selling Nazi memorabilia. There they argue that Internet companies should apply the laws of each country only to users in that country, through the magic of geo-coding. So which is it? Can a US web site avoid being subject to Australian courts by tailoring content to Australian subscribers versus others? What if its geocoding algorithm isn't perfect? What if a US subscriber visits Australia? What if an Australian subscriber visits the United States?

Another theme of the book is that governments are not just necessary and effective, but also legitimate (p 153):

Even acknowledging that in places that in places like China the laws will often not reflect the wishes of people who live there, differences among laws in the many democratic governments in the world ... are presumptively legitimate.

Arguably, there are more "places like China" than there are "many democratic governments". And it's common for laws not to reflect the wishes of the majority. But the biggest problem is with the presumption that laws can achieve legitimacy through democratic government. I prefer the presumption that individuals have rights, and that the legitimacy of the law flows from those rights

Goldsmith and Wu convincingly lose the argument about legitimacy when they discuss music copyright (pp 105ff). My issue with their point of view is that copyright is (or should be) a balance between the rights of the user and the copyright owner. If I buy a music CD, I believe I own it, and I should be able to transfer it to my PC or my iPod without the interference of a legally arbitrary DRM mechanism. Goldsmith and Wu mention only one side of this equation, the rights of the copyright holder. Whatever the legal analysis, Goldsmith and Wu are surely wrong about the popularity of pirated music (p 123): "A minority, the Slashdotters, with all the time and expertise in the world, have disappeared into darknets, and won't pay for music."

So why bother with this book it all (and why give it a four and not a zero)? Lawrence Lessig, who knows a smidgen more than I do about Internet Law, says this:

It is time that America learn an important lesson about the Internet — that however cyber the space is, it is also real, and subject to real space governments. This is the very best work to make this fundamental point. Goldsmith and Wu have made understandable and accessible an argument political culture should have realized a decade ago.

The book describes an important period, and arguably an important phase change, in Internet history. It raises important questions. I just don't necessarily like the answers.

You can purchase Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

I'm afraid I disagree with one point

[theonlyholle]

You wrote

It seems to me that Goldsmith and Wu are confusing the legal authority with the technical mechanism behind the domain name system. Computers all over the world communicate using IP addresses. Domain names are an important convenience, but only a convenience.

But it's true that to reliably communicate, we need to be sure that the DNS works the way it's supposed to work. We don't send our emails to IP addresses anymore. We don't browse to websites by IP address, in fact if we did, we'd miss a whole lot of smaller sites that make use of HTTP/1.1 name based virtual hosts. So domain names are much more than just a convenience.

Not that complicated

[moracity]

I don't see why people have such a hard time understanding the internet. It's similar to the global transporation system. There are many methods of transportation around the world: air, rail, water, roadways, and various combinations therewith. There is no singular authority controlling them, however, there are independent authorities that must work together to make transporation possible. Generally, like in the U.S, government is only a regulatory authority. In some countries, transporation mechanisms are actually state-owned.

In the U.S, roadways are "owned" by the state. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System is subsidized by the federal government to promote interstate transporation. As a result, the federal government regulates interstate roadway travel. They routinely hold funding of this system hostage to strong-arm states into submission regarding various issues.

The various rail systems are owned by the private companies that built them. This is probably a clearer illustration of how the internet works. My guess is that you would have to pay to build a depot or stop somewhere along that rail. You would then have to pay another fee to run your own train on a given route. You may have to pay multiple companies if you need to travel on a section of railway owned by another company. In addition, you may have to pay additional charges based on the number of cars you pull AND the contents. All the while, nearly every aspect is regulated by local, state, and federal governments. Fun times.

I realize this is an oversimplification, but I don't see why people get so uppity about regulation and corporate control of the internet. Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long for the idea of a tiered system to come up. Now that the net has become ubiquitous in most of the free world, it was only a matter of time. I'm not saying it's good or bad; it doesn't really matter. Whether you like it or not, the current internet/web is a result of private enterprise and no one should expect to get it for free or unregulated.

Sometimes, I wish the whole thing would just die. If the net is tiered and Google has to pay a surcharge on traffic, you can bet your bottom dollar that Google will start charging you for searches. They will come up with some way to offset the cost. We all know who loses in the end.

Re:Not that complicated

[DeathPooky]

This is part of the problem. Everyone tries to make simple analogies to figure out how the internet, or other technology, works, and in turn how it should be regulated. But those analogies quickly break down.

Lets take your transportation example. If I'm driving from state to state, I know I'm subject to the laws of every state I drive through. What if I send an email from Virginia to California? Does that make me subject to the laws of many states? Just the destination and start? The states where I can be proven my email may have had an impact?

Even more so, lets say you set up a website - a stop on your tracks. Typically, an actual train stop would be regulated by national, local and state laws, because it only has effects in those areas. But does it make sense to regulate a website in the same way? If I set up a website on a server in one state, should the laws of other states be able to reach me in connection with the site? Which states?

I'm not saying regulation is impossible, but simple analogies that try to make people understand how technology works and thus how our legal system should work result in some very bad laws.

Re:It could be worse

[Irish_Samurai]

spokesperson had to say visit us at 169.42.86.47 during a commercial.

I completely disagree. Before the Interent TV commercials often had phone numbers in them that poeple could call for more information. Some commercials, mostly of the infomercial type, still do. And a telephone number is longer than an IP address.

DNS certainly makes things easier, but it's not requirement - TV advertisers did just fine bofore the internet.