Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World [Hardcover]

"Who Controls the Internet?" by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu offers a clear-eyed assessment of the struggle to control the Internet. Starting with a discussion of the early vision of a borderless global community, the authors present some of the most prominent individuals, ideas and movements that have played key roles in developing the Internet as we know it today. As Law Professors at Harvard and Columbia, respectively, Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Wu adroitly assert the important role of government in maintaining Internet law and order while skillfully debunking the claims of techno-utopianism that have been espoused by popular but misinformed theorists such as Thomas Friedman.

The book has three sections. Part One is "The Internet Revolution". The authors discuss the early days of the Internet through the 1990s, when Julian Dibbell and John Perry Barlow articulated a libertarian vision that gained wide currency in the public imagination. The Electronic Frontier Foundation worked to protect the Internet from regulation in the belief that a free online community might unite people and melt government away. However, Jon Postel's attempt to assert control over the root naming and numbering system in 1998 was short-lived, as the U.S. government flexed its power in order to protect its national defense and business interests.

Part Two is "Government Strikes Back". Users in different places with widely varying cultures and preferences want information presented in their local language and context, the authors explain. Governments use a number of techniques to pressure or control local intermediaries to restrict Internet content that a majority of its citizens find unacceptable, such as the sale of Nazi paraphenelia in France. Of course, bad government begets bad policy: the authors tell us how China uses its powers of censorship to block dissent and publishes propaganda that cultivates a virulent form of nationalism. Yet, the authors illustrate how good government can work by showing how the contest in the U.S. between the RIAA and Kazaa ultimately enabled Apple's iTunes to emerge as a legally acceptable service that balances copyright laws and the public's preference for using the Internet to source and download music.

Part Three is "Vice, Virtues, the Future". The authors present an interesting case study about eBay and its founder's idealistic faith in the inherent goodness of the Internet community; we learn that when the company found its business model severely challenged by fraud, a resolution to the crisis was made workable with the assistance of local law enforcement. According to the authors, eBay, the case of an Australian libel lawsuit against a U.S. publisher, and Microsoft's acquiesence to European Union (EU) regulation of its Passport service are examples of how the bordered Internet seeks to protect citizens from harm. They argue convincingly that as a communications medium, the Internet is not unlike other technologies that have come before and therefore the Internet is not likely to displace territorial government. Rather, it is more likely, the authors speculate, that cultural and political differences may be leading us into a technological Cold War where the U.S., EU and China develop their own competitive Internet platforms.

The author's reasoning that issues of Internet law might be handled in the same manner as environmental laws at the international level brings to mind an argument made by Robyn Eckersley in her excellent book, "The Green State" where the pivotal role of the state in preserving the natural environment is asserted. While these two books might appear to be unfashionable to some by their emphasis on the state, in my opinion it appears that the facts on the ground support these authors when they suggest that government serves as the most amenable and accessible mechanism for expressing the popular will of the people, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.

I strongly recommend this engaging, intelligent and visionary book to everyone.

I was very disappointed with this book after seeing all of the high reviews here, and reading the description for the book. I thought I was going to be reading an in-depth analysis of the technical, legal, and political means by which governments control, censor, and surveil the Internet, what the sociopolitical effects of this are, and how people around the world are resisting invasion of privacy and deprivation of autonomy.

Instead, I discovered that it was actually a poorly reasoned apology for government surveillance, censorship, and control of the Internet. Bringing out those trusty old substitutes for rational analysis and debate -- child porn, Nazi hate speech, and computer fraudsters -- Wu and Goldsmith repeatedly attempt to show us how grateful we should be for our governments "protecting" us from "villains", and how we were all so "naive" for thinking that we wanted to be able to have a democratic, uncensored electronic communications medium, and how silly we were for thinking that we would actually be allowed to have one.

They discuss issues within inane framings such as "uninhibited debate vs. order", and talk about how it's great that governments are censoring and monitoring the public, because that's what people need to keep them safe from all of those Nazis and child pornographers. They of course, superficially touch upon the Chinese surveillance state, and how in *extreme* and *rare* situations like China, government surveillance, censorship, and control might *possibly* lead to political repression -- but other than that, they keep on the velvet gloves, hardly discussing government violations of liberty and privacy, and not touching at all upon the extensive surveillance apparatus in the United States or Great Britain. They're too busy scaring us with stories that are supposed to let us know how good all of this is, to honestly cover the reasons that people oppose these sorts of government activities

Instead of hearing WHY people are so "caught up" in these "naive" quest for the ability to have private, uncensored communications, we have over 1/3 of the book informing us that these programs are a "necessary evil", and how anyone who criticizes them is just a naive, ethnocentric "libertarian" who doesn't understand that they can't go around pushing the "uniquely American values" of free speech and privacy on other cultures who don't want them. They both under- and mis-represent the views of people who defend privacy and autonomy, and make them out to be a bunch of naive, overly-optimistic, idealists who have such an innocent, childish view of the world that they, in their quest after silly abstractions like political freedom, have overlooked all of those "public goods" like libel law and police repression that maintain that comfortable "order" (comfortable, that is, if you are an Ivy League professor who gets to experience the friendly side of it, instead of a Chinese torture chamber) that is threatened by "uninhibited debate" (like people being able to openly discuss corporate crimes without being hit with a SLAPP lawsuit for violating the libel/slander laws that the authors are so vigorously promoting).

They "prove" through the example of fraud on E-Bay, that people need government to protect them from fraud, conveniently ignoring the fact that the market system that those same governments were designed to protect are the sole reason that the fraudsters exist in the first place (if there was no money or economic inequality/injustice, what exactly would a fraudster *do*?).

And besides all of that, even as an apology for totalitarianism and nationalism, it was still poorly put together. The book has extremely low information density, and is very poorly reasoned. Even if you agree with them that governments should tightly control and monitor the Internet, you still won't learn much -- most of the book is irrelevant fluff. Their view of how governments "work" is very simplistic -- reminiscent of a high-school civics/government class. Seeing that the authors are law professors at Ivy League universities merely reaffirms Noam Chomsky's statement that many of the people in universities these days are not really "intellectuals", but in fact "a kind of secular priesthood, whose task it is to uphold the doctrinal truths of this society."

Don't waste your time, money, or energy.

Jack and Tim made one thing dramatically clear: The Internet is no lawless enclave in our world. Their journey from the very beginning to the modern Internet is full of clear examples and anecdotes describing the "rude awakening" of idealists and patient people who participated in the development of the globe-consuming web.

When I read that the authors come from the dry plains of law science I was sceptical if the book would be worth to read. I imagined that their approach would be as dry as the 1000 ft law books in the libraries.

But, when I opened it and started reading I first put it down after page 186, the very last page of the remarkable work. Their writing is so gripping, so light to read, that even a none-English person like me could easily understand and enjoy it.

After working with the Internet since the beginnings of the 80's I thought I knew a lot about it and how it is screwed together, but I got surprised. Their view from a complete different angle, threw light on hidden aspects I honestly never thought about. In a modern world full of economical interests and its enforcement all makes absolute sense and even dramatic events like the Napster case fall into their logical place in this big puzzle.

Every part of the book is filled with cross-references and hints to further readings. All cases and examples are deep researched and very neutral presented.

Buy it, read it and give it to a dear one.

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