An international cast of scholars, policy makers, and activists are included here to address the findings of the Middle Eastern Dubai meeting of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). A subsequent meeting took place in Switzerland confronting the lack of consensus between the policy recommendations of the WCIT and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), with its intimate relationship with the US Department of Commerce. The volume is indicative of the tensions of the last 15 years between maintaining a primary role for the US to govern the Internet or to cede control to an international entity, a UN of the internet as it were (page 5).

One potential avenue of governance foresaw an overarching role for the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized entity that regulated most networks since 1865. In the mid-1990s, the recognition of governance limitations in regard to the lack of trademarks in Internet domain names led to more international inclusion and the founding of the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC). Although definitions vary widely, this latter development has been described as “multistakeholderism,” an attempt to balance the interests of the private sector, civil society, and governments. While the IAHC solved some anxieties about legitimate governance, it failed to acknowledge the intimacy between the Internet and the US as largely an American invention (detailed in chapter 4).

The two basic options of discussion then are governance by the US or future direction led by International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), which some decry as the replacement of multistakeholderism and an open internet. In three parts, the editors tackle the salient points: 1) an overview of different governance models; 2) the shortcomings of the existing system, and 3) the geopolitics of Internet governance, issues of cyber security, and the effects on state sovereignty.

Although there are important points by several contributors, three of the chapters are the most crucial. The key chapters are chapter 4 by Richard Hill, addressing American colonialism and imperialism; chapter 7 by Gianluigi Negro commenting on Chinese Internet governance; and chapter 8 by Andreas Kuehn who describes the connection between cyber security and the US Einstein program.

Attorney Hill, based in Geneva, advocates serious discussions to relinquish the privileged American role in Internet governance in favor of the ITU, and toward a worldwide one nation, one vote governance structure. In this scenario, the rising power of China would no doubt play an increasingly powerful role. Negro describes how Chinese governance has powerfully transitioned to increase its control over internal Internet use. Interestingly, China logged onto the Internet through the role played by the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) under the supervision of the US Department of Defense, and then the US National Science Fund (NSF) issued official authorization to link China to the Internet. Finally, Sprint Co. set up a fully functioning link. In short, China plugged in through US government and private company auspices. Chinese officials grasped the economic benefits of connection and with more users today than any other nation, including the US, the Chinese government has erected the largest firewall in the world. China has been very critical of the US ICANN and “has pushed for radical changes in Internet governance” (page 145). Finally, Kuehn argues that a fundamental substrate of Internet governance--cybersecurity--will be shifted under the auspices of national security to private agreements between national governments and large corporations. As the fall-out of the 2013 National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance scandal played out, it became clear that what the NSA did was not a surprise; however, the magnitude and the comprehensiveness of NSA efforts was first realized.

In this volume, there is no clear-cut answer to Internet governance, but there are tentative steps forward. The conflicts of governance as reviewed here are several and deep-seated. It is unclear when in the case of international conflicts where authority ought to best reside in order to ensure the protection of intellectual property rights. Often private companies advocate a government-free zone on the Internet and yet still cooperate with US NSA surveillance efforts. Autocratic regimes, such as China, fiercely criticize the US and call for international democratic participation while repressing their own domestic consumers.

Without a coherent program, the contributors nonetheless provide some guidance for the way ahead and insist on some basic features of democratic Internet governance: legitimacy, cooperation, participation, and accountability. If there is to be progress in Internet governance, and this is still a hugely debatable proposition, this volume does indicate important considerations to reconcile current competing stakeholders.

Readers interested in recent and related work on the topic might consider reading another book as well [1], which describes global power dynamics around the technical and political governance of the Internet.