Internet Governance – Trends and Prospects

Abstract

Internet is, without exaggeration, a powerful driving force that transforms all aspects of social relations, the world economy and public administration. At the same time, certain indications suggest that the global network project was conceived to promote and maintain US dominance in the field of information and communication technologies, and to serve national interests. The United States still maintains indirect techno-political control over the development of the network through ICANN and other institutions. Although the international community has been working hard for a long time on the internationalization of Internet governance, it has yielded almost no results. Today, the increasingly obvious centrifugal trends in the development of the Internet – primarily in a political context – indicate the possible occurrence of a turning point that will reformat both the network itself and its governance. The reasoning behind this lies in the desire, on the one hand, to cut the benefits of the Internet off countries with an alternative point of view on its development, and, on the other hand, to consolidate the like-minded states. It is plausible that in practice this will result in fragmentation and the creation of regional networks – each with its own rules, to accommodate the interests of individual groups of states