The freedom of expression is not something insignificant. It doesn't matter where we live, there is always reason for concern regarding the opening of Internet information or that our freedoms are being eroded and corrupted. This does not necessarily mean that there are hordes of censors or state “great firewalls”. The American National Security Agency, for example, sifts wholesale electronic transmissions that pass through satellite and cable networks, using advanced technologies and the massive new data center they built in Bluffdale, Utah. The US government appears to stay silent when a supporter of freedom of expression – WikiLeaks – emerged, but instead of silence it tries to fight it underground. US internet companies such as Facebook and Google have turned the Web into a “surveillance machine” that soaks up commercial profit-making data from users' behaviors.
Hidden Interests
Even during the 1970s, the phrase “free flow of information” served for a time as a central doctrine of US foreign policy. During the era of colonialism and the Cold War, this doctrine aimed to be a bright beacon illuminating the way worldwide for the emancipation of imperialism and state oppression. Today it continues to paint deep economic and strategic interests in the appealing language of universal human rights.
“Freedom of the internet”, “freedom of connection”, “pure freedom» – were the terms used by Foreign Minister Hilary Clinton and Google officials on the way to WCIT – which is today’s version of the «free flow». But exactly as before, “freedom on the Internet” is a lie. Calculated manipulation, tells us that it has assigned a fundamental human right to a pair of selfish social actors: businesses and states.
The discussions at WCIT were multifaceted, and covered topics of a horizontal nature. One was the trade terms between Internet services such as Google and companies that transport large volumes of data – network operators and service providers such as Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, etc. This business battle hosts implications for a broader and more significant political issue: who will pay for the continuous modernization of network infrastructure?
However, the terms of trade in the global Internet industry are also important, because any general decree that would force content providers to start paying network operators would have serious consequences for the Net Neutrality policy, which is so vital for Internet users.
Until now, the power exerted by the US has been quite disproportionate. During the 1990s, when the web-centric Internet emerged, the US made strong efforts to institutionalize the role of management. Domain names, under the leadership of dotcom, the numeric addresses (IPs) and network identifiers must be unique for the system to operate.
These critical Internet resources are managed by a U.S. agency, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), under a contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce. IANA ostensibly operates as a unit of a separate, and seemingly more accountable, nonprofit organization based in California called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical standards for the Internet are developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) in collaboration with another nonprofit, the Internet Society. These organizations are funded by the U.S. and their composition is more responsive to U.S. needs than to the demands of their users.
The top global commercial websites do not use the Chinese or Russian language, let alone the language of Kenya or Mexico. As everyone knows, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon have created dotcom services that are used by people worldwide. And an ever expanding range of commoditization projects and corporate chains of core products continues to rely on the cross‑border data flows of the Internet. Ongoing transition today to “computational cloud» services will further broaden this dependence. The asymmetric control structure of the Internet provides a fundamental base for American businesses and military superiority in cyberspace. While the American government plays an outsized role, other states have minimal opportunities – individually or collectively – to regulate this system. By establishing various technical and legal measures, of course, they can exert their dominance over the domestic Internet. But even when they go to exercise these national jurisdictions, the US will attack them for shaping this policy. Milton Mueller aptly captures this asymmetry with the following observation:
As it is today the Internet incorporates all US policy for a «single globalization».
Logic
The exercise of this management function allowed the US to be inspired by the logic of ownership at the heart of the development of the system on the Internet – via ICANN. Despite the fact that it is a complex, semi-autonomous institution, the power of ICANN for the Domain Name System was developed to grant extraterritorial advantages to corporate owners of trademarks and other interests.
During the protests of non‑commercial organizations, even though they are also represented by the ICANN framework, they were found unable to dominate Coca‑Cola, Procter & Gamble and other large companies. ICANN uses a private‑law contract to link with its rules, extensive organizations that even manage countries worldwide. National providers, various Internet applications, control domestic markets in various countries, including Russia, China and the Republic of Korea. However, international Internet services are metropolises built by American capital and state authority.
Le Monde Diplomatique: Masters of the Internet
