Product Description

Is the Internet erasing national borders? Will the future of the Net be set by Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net? In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world. It's a book about the fate of one idea--that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust the FBI. In a decade of events the original vision is uprooted, as governments time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them. While acknowledging the many attractions of the earliest visions of the Internet, the authors describe the new order, and speaking to both its surprising virtues and unavoidable vices. Far from destroying the Internet, the experience of the last decade has lead to a quiet rediscovery of some of the oldest functions and justifications for territorial government. While territorial governments have unavoidable problems, it has proven hard to replace what legitimacy governments have, and harder yet to replace the system of rule of law that controls the unchecked evils of anarchy. While the Net will change some of the ways that territorial states govern, it will not diminish the oldest and most fundamental roles of government and challenges of governance. Well written and filled with fascinating examples, including colorful portraits of many key players in Internet history, this is a work that is bound to stir heated debate in the cyberspace and globalization communities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278478 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Observer, 30 April 2006
'thoughtful study'

Review
A timely look at the ways that governments make themselves felt in cyberspace. Goldsmith and Wu cover a range of controversies, from domain-name disputes to online poker and porn to political censorship. Their judgments are well worth attending. (David Robinson, Wall Street Journal )

In the 1990s the Internet was greeted as the New New Thing: It would erase national borders, give rise to communal societies that invented their own rules, undermine the power of governments. In this splendidly argued book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu explain why these early assumptions were mostly wrong: The Internet turns out to illustrate the enduring importance of Old Old Things, such as law and national power and business logic. By turns provocative and colorful, this is an essential read for anyone who cares about the relationship between technology and globalization. (Sebastian Mallaby, Editorial Writer and Columnist, The Washington Post )

Guardian, 23.12.06
'Sometimes it reads with the zip of an investigative
thriller....Lane's story is intriguing.'

Customer Reviews

Refreshing
This is a competent work that challenges the oft-repeated cliché of the "Internet without borders". Written in an approachable style, it analyses a number of cases where governments, from the United States, through Europe to China and Australia, have successfully managed to control the Internet. Sometimes, as in China, this was accompanied by an unprecedented investment in IT infrastructure, demonstrating that intervention in the developing world, however problematic, does not always equal lack of innovation.

The authors give an accurate picture of various modes of intervention, and of their outcomes but if their book has a shortcoming, it is probably in its underestimation of the very real threat of government intervention in cyberspace. Although, they have successfully argued that intervention may sometimes be necessary (as in the case of eBay) they never provide the elements of a proper governance model.

Highly recommended.

You will be glad you read this.
When i started reading this book i panicked thinking i was in a bit deep-and punching above my weight.But after switching on the reading afterburners i started to get into it.
The book illustrates that yes!-there are real people out their in cyber space with their hands on the controls of this massive network...Hooray!,i actually found it very comforting that this beast can be tamed by Government and friendly,hippy,bearded engineers.
I am very pleased that i read the whole book, and being a blogger the information in the book has given me a lot more confidence and understanding about how Google works.
The book is a good read-but,you can put it down,it can be a bit taxing on the brain cells.However when i completed it i reworded them with a beer or two,ha ha.