Internet or Splinternet?

The internet connects nearly half the world’s people, though political censorship and cybercrime could reduce public trust, explains Joseph Nye for Project Syndicate. He urges common rules to avoid fragmentation, based on a report from the Global Commission on Internet Governance. The report urges that openly developed standards, good user habits to discourage hackers, system design centered around security, protections for encryption, agreements prohibiting countries from attacking internet infrastructure, and “transparent reporting of technological problems to provide a market-based insurance industry to enhance the IOT’s security.” The world is divided over the best approach for internet governance: multi-stakeholders with control by technocrats, broader control by the UN’s International Telecommunications Union and a range of national controls. Governments need not be involved, though, as reflected by the US Commerce Department’s transfer some oversight to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. Cooperation and openness could prevent fragmentation that limits innovation and connections. – YaleGlobal