Absinthe & Cookies (a bit bitter, a bit sweet)

The End of the Internet?

A whole lot of guns are lined up against the Net right now: Net neutrality/two-tiered Internet issues; increasing discomfort over the U.S. control of Internet operation; China's moves to create its own domain system (a possible prelude to a new, country-specific, alternate root system); supposition that, with Vint Cerf and a bunch of dark fiber in hand, Google might be looking to create its own Internet--and of course, there are the viruses, the spam, the scourge on young people that is MySpace, and, how could I forget...porn and pop-ups.

Basically, I'm starting to wonder if the one-Internet-for-all paradigm we've enjoyed so far is about to break and if we can expect a future where we all use smaller, private, for-profit or nonprofit, corporate, and/or political Internets according to our various locations and interests. Let me put it this way: it's all too likely that George W. Bush didn't misspeak when he mentioned "the Internets." The military has probably already built an alternate Internet--if not more than one, and it's looking all too possible that the Net itself is about to fracture into a mess of cliques, privately owned networks, and glorified Usenets.

Read the whole thing here.

Posted by Ithildin at March 18, 2006 1:23 PM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE