Milton L. Mueller presents both a critical history and guarded future about Internet governance in Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance. Published in September of 2010, the book presents a challenging look at what lies ahead for online regulation; Mueller effectively illustrates this key theme by chronicling the history of global Internet governance and the transnational institutions that supposedly make it so.
While one year in the Internet industry rivals multiple years in other sectors, Mueller has critically assessed and carefully selected four relatively timeless challenges relevant to the future of Internet governance: (1) IP regulation, (2) cybersecurity, (3) content regulation, and (4) control of critical internet resources (domain and IP). The significance of these issues is effectively articulated: Mueller lays a theoretical foundation of networks, presents a historical overview of the authorities and organizations involved in Internet governance, and weaves the implications of these issues through clever case studies and examples.
Mueller clearly draws from his expertise with Internet governing bodies, having founded and served as chair of the Noncommerical Users Constituency and been a member of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), both part of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In his previous book, Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2002), Mueller likened control of the Internet to control of root domains, ultimately explaining why root domains are now in the hands of ICANN. Mueller's familiarity with transnational regulatory agencies, specifically ICAAN, still shines brightly in Networks and States.
Networks and States follows a solid structure, whereby chapter 1 lays a mostly effective foundation for the course of the book. The key question Mueller posits is clear: it is not whether the Internet should be governed, but how, and Mueller alerts the reader to the four critical areas of conflict mentioned above. While Mueller's overall goal is clear, he jumps a bit too quickly through additional themes that emerge in later chapters: peer production, multi-stakeholders, transnational civil society, and digital convergence, to name a few.
Mueller's effectiveness as a writer and storyteller emerges through his carefully recounted case studies. Chapter 2 selects three events, each of which highlights a unique aspect of Internet governance. These case studies portray surprisingly unprepared global entities and governments, struggling to discern the legal authority between physical property, digital content, and global communication. For example, Mueller recounts the 2004 takedown of Indymedia, which possibly went awry when an FBI agent perhaps mistakenly requested “hardware” (instead of digital content) removal. This set off a chain of events between Indymedia's server operators (in Texas), the physical servers (in London), and the original request from Italian and Swiss governments to the United States.
The Estonian cyber riots of 2007 are the subject of another case study, possibly representing “cyberwar”: a coordinated effort of rented and borrowed bots that bombarded and brought down Estonia government websites. This technique, distributed denial of service (DDoS), is still a trademark of online hackers and cybercrime communities; the organization of hackers Anonymous has recently attracted much media attention for their activity.
After presenting case studies and the regulatory challenges facing the Internet, Mueller proceeds to chapter 3, “Do Networks Govern?,” which aims to offer the reader an overview of and theoretical definitions of networks. While it is important to acknowledge the theory behind networks and network analysis, this chapter lacks integration with the rest of Mueller's book. It is as if Mueller felt compelled to acknowledge his book title, Networks and States, with an obligatory theoretical chapter on networks. It is evident that Mueller's passion lies in the legal and regulatory puzzles, and less on defining network theory; thus, this chapter is a bit drier than the rest of the work. The writing temporarily lights up with Mueller hinting at a healthy skepticism toward the fervor with which academics are applying social network analysis to whatever context and domains they can get their hands on.
In the remaining chapters, Mueller discusses additional regulatory events (e.g., the World Summit on Information Society) and further elaborates on the challenges introduced earlier—civil society mobilization, content regulation, security, and critical resources. Among these, chapter 7, “IP vs IP,” stands out as it rings close to home, given the current news-media attention on the technology patent predicament. Mueller describes the battle between intellectual property and Internet protocol as being “as much about freedom of expression and privacy … as it is about the technicalities of establishing property rights over names and digital materials.” In fact, the growth of the Internet and competition in the technology industry has seemingly changed the vision of early Internet pioneers from an open-source frontier (where Internet protocol is king) to one where intellectual property reigns.
Chapter 8, on security governance, is another star chapter, discussing spam, phishing, malware, viruses, and surveillance, and how governments may be blurring the line between national security and cyber security. In this chapter, Mueller presents a disappointingly brief but nonetheless important discussion of online identity. This section is titled “Identity online—the final frontier,” and describes “the problem of authenticating users and uses.” Mueller's focus on identity as a final frontier and a matter of ultimate importance is spot-on. Yet the reader is left wishing that Mueller would further explore the implications of claiming an identity online versus retaining the right to act anonymously. Mueller presents only the difficulty of achieving a comprehensive and globally recognized Internet identification system: “Establishing such a system of identification of a global scale for cyberspace would involve an incredible degree of transnational cooperation and probably also the creation of a large, even frightening bureaucratic overlay.”
While this is no doubt true in many respects, Mueller does little to explore and educate the reader about small steps already being taken in the online identity space, specifically through smaller individual efforts in industry. Requiring a real identity for services, while a drop in the bucket of Internet regulation and identity, is just one example of how corporate entities may in fact be driving more of the Internet governance policy than previously suggested.
In his descriptions of these events, Mueller is clearly fluent in the organizational structures surrounding Internet governance, though he curiously avoids much discussion of for-profit institutions and corporations that are also driving regulation and change. Most of the politics between the organizations Mueller describes appears to be territorial battles or feuds between nation-states, even pitting the United Nations against the United States in a quest for distributed control.
Again, the reader is left appreciating the bureaucracy and competing power plays between states and national and global organizations, yet still curious about the influence of corporations and industry. For example, one entity that Mueller discusses is the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a United Kingdom nonprofit chartered as “the UK hotline for reporting criminal content online” (www.iwf.org.uk). Mueller describes a particularly salacious event for the IWF, a censorship attempt gone awry: this attempt inadvertently resulted in blocking both view and edit access to Wikipedia, the peer-produced encyclopedia, which ultimately resulted in more attention to the scandalous image (the cover art on the Scorpions’ album Virgin Killer) and was a publicity disaster. A decade later, the IWF now appears to be heavily funded through corporate sponsors—the likes of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, BBC, AOL, Virgin, Blackberry, and many others—proudly championed on its website. This leaves the reader curious to know: was this degree of corporate sponsorship also the norm when the Virgin Killer event occurred?
Networks and States undoubtedly offers an education into the scope and weakness inherent to global Internet governance. Yet it is not without flaws: the reader is left curious about Mueller's omission of certain topics, specifically the role of corporations in Internet regulation, and the (perhaps unspoken) relationship between industry and transnational organizations. Further, while Mueller himself is clearly fluent in the acronym-laden world of Internet governance, the reader is left blindly grasping to recall the significance of each organization and its place in the global bureaucracy.
In conclusion, Mueller expresses both healthy skepticism of and appreciation for national governments and states, and a desire to empower individuals and Internet freedoms. Networks and States expertly discusses Internet regulation and the institutions established to provide that governance, and sufficiently discusses network theory. The book unfortunately avoids discussion of nontypical network influence, namely, that from corporate interests and grassroots mobilization networks. Despite this, Networks and States is an informative and enlightening read, particularly when coupled with Mueller's idealized visions for a future of effective Internet governance.
