Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jack Goldsmith, Tim Wu
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 288624
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0195340647
Dewey Decimal Number: 004
EAN: 9780195340648
ASIN: 0195340647
Publication Date: June 30, 2008
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Product Description
Is the Internet erasing national borders? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net--Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries?
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 was uprooted, as governments time and time again asserted 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.
Well written and filled with fascinating examples, this is a work that is bound to stir heated debate in the cyberspace community.
"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. By turns provocative and colorful...an essential read."
--Sebastian Mallaby, Editorial Writer and Columnist, The Washington Post
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Interesting book September 29, 2008
A book based on facts, but written to be read as fiction. Once you start, you don't leave it. Makes you smile, and makes you think about new economy and what governments can and should do.
Rompiendo ilusiones sobre internet September 21, 2008
La imagen de internet se debate entre un estereotipo mediatico popular que habla de su ilimitada capacidad autonoma y de recursos, frente a la realidad de las limitaciones y exclusiones con las que tropieza dia a dia que cada vez son toleradas y alimentadas como excusa necesaria para un desarrollo tecnologico, economico y social.
En este contexto comentaba Juan Freire hace poco:
"Internet ofrece un espacio virtual de libertad, autonomo de las autoridades del mundo fisico."
Y mientras el deseo de un espacio virtual libre y autonomo pueda ser genuino no hay nada mas alejado de la realidad vigente. El espacio de Internet esta sujeto cada vez mas a normas, regulaciones, fronteras, que permiten la expansion de la herramienta pero tambien su adaptacion a realidades locales. Las cuales desafortunadamente no tienen en cuenta unicamente los gustos o necesidades de un tipo de usuarios sino que se amoldan a necesidades de gobiernos o intereses privados generando practicas represivas y restrictivas del uso de Internet. Es asi Internet la que se adapta y no el gobierno de China acepta la libertad de expression. Por ejemplo al punto de que la informacion facilitada por gigantes como Yahoo es la responsable de poner a disidentes politicos tras rejas.
Si hay algo que hace bien el libro de Jack Goldsmith y Tim Wu, "Who Controls the Internet?, Illusions of a Borderless World" es eso, mostrar la historia de Internet y su relacion con el mundo fisico, las barreras regionales, nacionales y como se esta modificando el desarrollo de esta comunicacion cada vez mas para acomodarse a imposiciones desde arriba y no responder necesariamente a los deseos de la comunidad de usurarios. El libro es muy recomendable en su analisis de la concepcion de Internet y desarrollos y casos legales en los ultimos anos. Algo quizas no tan novedoso para aquellos que lleven inmersos en estos debates un tiempo. Pero en particular es util para senalar a defensores simplistas de una globalizacion capitalista homogeneizadora como Thomas Friedman. Desafortunadamente el libro en sus conclusiones tiene una vertiente conservadora, y mientras Friedman es un conservador global e imperial, Goldsmith y Wu muestran un conservadurismo digital que defiende y anima las restricciones regionales sin ningun pudor e incluso desprecia el pensamiento de muchos de los impulsores de internet que buscaban un espacio sin fronteras, libre y diverso.
Mas: http://daquellamanera.org/?q=node/44
 outdated - already! December 21, 2007
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
When keeping up to date with news and stories about the internet you'll just find a compact, but not to detailed summary of it all.
 Who Controls the Internet September 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Despite what most people assume and many more wish the Internet has become regulated. The Internet is controled within a countries borders resulting in many conflicting laws. That's a problem for Internet companies who have assets across many borders. Can they get away with just following their countries laws? Time and time again the authors evince the answer being no. Companies like yahoo, google, mircrosoft, ebay, the Dow Jones, obsequiously follow foreign laws but not necessarily sacrifice their own.
Some of these companies have no qualms either assisting the Chinese filter pro-democracy websites, in short because they feel they have to. As I right this Yahoo is being sued by the World Organization for Human Rights for giving the Chinese government I.P. addresses of Chinese citizens who will then jailed and tortured for subversion. Yahoo asserts they were simply following the law.
And that is the problem facing these companies especially with China. They really have no other choice to or get out.
The book was well writen, fair and balanced.
Understand the complexity of the Internet January 15, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Jack and Tim made one thing dramatically clear: The Internet is no lawless enclave in our world. Their journey from the very beginning to the modern Internet is full of clear examples and anecdotes describing the "rude awakening" of idealists and patient people who participated in the development of the globe-consuming web.
When I read that the authors come from the dry plains of law science I was sceptical if the book would be worth to read. I imagined that their approach would be as dry as the 1000 ft law books in the libraries.
But, when I opened it and started reading I first put it down after page 186, the very last page of the remarkable work. Their writing is so gripping, so light to read, that even a none-English person like me could easily understand and enjoy it.
After working with the Internet since the beginnings of the 80's I thought I knew a lot about it and how it is screwed together, but I got surprised. Their view from a complete different angle, threw light on hidden aspects I honestly never thought about. In a modern world full of economical interests and its enforcement all makes absolute sense and even dramatic events like the Napster case fall into their logical place in this big puzzle.
Every part of the book is filled with cross-references and hints to further readings. All cases and examples are deep researched and very neutral presented.
Buy it, read it and give it to a dear one.
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