Internet Governance and Regulation

• The topic is about governance on the internet, including ICANN and W3C, and recommendations and standards of the WWW

Internet Governance and Regulation

• Internet's growing importance has led to increased legal attention from states and international institutions like the EU
• Regulation focuses on access as a fundamental right, telecom regulation as a physical support, and data privacy

Borderless Nature of the Internet

• The classical elements of State Theory (territory, population, power) get challenged by the borderless nature of the internet

Defining Internet Governance

• According to the UN Working Group, governance is power dynamics among governments, private sector, and civil society
• The debate extends beyond politics, affecting free access, fundamental rights, economic development, cybercrime, and intellectual property

Current Internet Management

• Internet is managed by private entities, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Architecture Board (IAB)

ICANN's Role

• ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a key organization in internet governance
• ICANN manages the domain name system and is crucial for coordinating the internet's functionality

ICANN's Origins and Structure

• Established in 1998 as a result of the Clinton Administration's policies, ICANN emerged from the privatization of the domain name system by the US Department of Commerce due to Internet growth
• Previously, the US Department of Defense funded internet research through ARPAnet

ICANN's Nature and Jurisdiction

• ICANN is a non-profit entity under North American jurisdiction, specifically California
• A key responsibility involves coordinating domain names globally, acting as an "end-to-end identifier"

ICANN's technical coordination

• ICANN coordinates the Domain Name System (DNS), IP addresses, protocol identifiers, top-level domain names, and root server system management

ICANN Governance Structure

• ICANN reflects the origins of the internet, using a bottom-up, consensual model with diverse actors, including states
• The Governmental Advisory Committee has a limited factual role
• ICANN's relationship with the US Department of Commerce began in 1998 with the "White Paper" and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
• The "Affirmation of Commitments", effective from October 1, 2009, commits ICANN to remain a non-profit, independent organization that is subject to community reviews

US influence

• The US government, via the Department of Commerce, approves changes to the root zone file, including new top-level domains, controlling the "entry point" to the Internet

International Debate on Internet Governance

• The main debate is whether the internet should be managed by US-led pseudo-private governance or by governmental bodies

World Summit on the Information Society

• The World Summit on the Information Society, held in Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005, made internet governance a key topic
• The UN created the Internet Governance Forum for discussion, but has no supervisory power

International Telecommunication Union (UIT)

• The UIT also addressed the issue
• The status quo was maintained after a vote

Global impact of goverance

• Due to its global and controversial nature, reaching a global agreement is challenging

Data Storage Agreement

• US and EU reached a preliminary agreement on storing European data in the US as of March 25, 2022, resolving a dispute after the "Privacy Shield" was deemed illegal in 2020

Establishment of Technical Standards

• Protocols standardize the internet, enabling interoperability among all users

Key Internet Protocol

• TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) directs data, divides it into packets, and reassembles it

Other Protocols

• Other protocols: SMTP (email), FTP (file transfer), HTTP (web pages)

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

• Responsible for designing internet protocols

TCP/IP

• TCP/IP promotes equal treatment of data packets and end-to-end principle
• BitTorrent enhances user privacy by avoiding IP address logging

Criticisms of protocols

• Protocols especially those in the original architecture are objects of pressure due to concerns for security, copyright and crime prevention

WWW (W3C)

• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sets web standards, ensuring privacy in the digital environment
• Mission: guide the Web to its full potential through protocols and guidelines

Semantic Web

• Semantic Web activities are advanced by the W3C to create technologies for publishing data readable by computer applications

Semantic Web's basis

• Relies on adding semantic and ontological metadata to enable automatic evaluation by processing machines to improve interoperability

Tim Berners-Lee

• Tim Berners-Lee initially intended to include semantics in the World Wide Web but introduced the concept later

Internet's Impact

• The Web has become integral to daily life, changing communication, business, and work

Web's flexibility

• Medium for communication, commerce, entertainment, information access, education, available universally

Accessibility

• The World Wide Web offers vast information from various entities for different purposes

Navigating the internet

• Access is easy by using the specific address or search engines

Web's Success

• Success relies on simplicity and availability

Website Difficulty

• Increasing the number of users makes tasks hard to find

Current Web Content Design

• Current web content is made for what people can understand
• Information is coded with marking languages that describe how information should be shown to the user

Web Semantic

• Web semantic introduces explanations in different languages
• Extended web uses significance to help the computer and people work cooperatively

W3C President

• Web standardization is done by W3C to make machines understand content without intervention, enabling smart agents for users

Semantic Web Function

• Web Semantics are designed to allow integrated information for computers to infer different patterns

Web Semantic's Tech

• Internet infrastructure needed for project is Unicode

Unicode

• Coding with characters so many languages can be used

URI

• (Uniform Resource identifier) quick text ID for the internet link

XML with NS and xmlschema

• The combined layers can be integrated with Semantic Web and other standard websites

XML

• Add structure to documents and restrictions on significance

NS

• Association to XML names with URI

XML Schema

• Defines the XML structure
• Know if the XML is valid

RDF + rdfschema

• Allows to explain expressions in a simple format

RDF

• Data to reference objects and relationships

RDF Schema

• Vocabulary to discribe property of RDF with generation

Web Semantics

• Web Semantics use metadata, concepts, website resources

Web Semantic Mechanics

• Mechanisms to increase filters, databases, users adapt, easy use

W3C and Digital Rights Management (DRM)

• W3C included DRM for protecting copyright

The problem with DRM

• Gives too much control to website owners

Guides to follow from W3C

• One of the main things W3C does is create mandatory site design guidelines

Genuine Content

• Following W3C standards includes proportion between correct text and code

Genuine Text

• Company contact names that are indexed by the search browsers

W3C standards

• Guarantees the correct visual for interenet browser

Site compatible

• Site can be viewed on any device like mobile or PDA

Consistency

• Regardless of settings site will be accurate

Correct View

• Those with those that are different can view site accurately

Standards list from W3C

• Standards for CSS and HTML and XML

The standards include

• Specifications on the programming used for XML, HTML and use of CSS
• Accessibility
• Production of content
• Privacy
• Quality

The goal

• Its easy to lose track in the amount you want to add to the specification of recommendatipons

XML Developed Standards

• XML its a meta language extracted from SGML

XML goal

• It is meant to be flexible to create common ways to share data between system computaion. its a W3c standard

RDF (resource description framework)

• Recommendation used to present data

Daml + Oil

• Coding Semantic language for Website to add common themes

Owl (web ontology language)

• Its made to use as tool to share information for websites