Goldsmith, J. and Wu, T. 2006 Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World. Oxford University Press, Inc.
ISBN:  0195152662

When you end up mentioning a book three times in two days, perhaps it's time to tell more people about it?

Who Controls the Internet? is a book I've been reading by bits since the turn of the year.  By Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law prof and a fellow at the Berkman Center, and Tim Wu, prof at Columbia Law, this is, honestly, not what I'd expect to come out of the Berkman Center.

Since I am at Berkman on and off, I'm looking forward to taking the book up with Professor Goldsmith, if I have the chance at some point.  It has the honor of having the highest density of highlighting and marginata of any book I've read for a couple years.

This book basically makes raspberries and seeks to destroy the illusions of any person who might believe that the voluntary association built into the architecture of the Internet means a fig to the powers that be of national governments and various regulatory authorities. 

As a conservative history of the struggle for Internet internationalism, it's a biased but enlightening read.  The authors' agenda is stronger than their scholarship.  I lived through some of the items they report (like the founding of the EFF and such) and even where the events are literally presented, and I can only say we disagree on interpretation, if not facts.  In some cases, I believe the authors are either mistaken or distorting the course of events, often in ways that try to minimize the personalities they don't like who are on the "other side" of their argument.

However, my father taught me that to do the best possible work for peace, you have to intimately understand the ways of war -- how the other side of the negotiating table thinks.  And for those of you interested in keeping worlds such as Second Life reasonably independent of national and regulatory morass -- this is the book to read, ponder, and plan strategies against.

Goldsmith and Wu believe that nationalism and national sovereignty and regulation have an inherent and uncontestable dominance over Internet affairs -- and they paint a history that shows how that viewpoint has come through in the courts.

Now, many of us might think that the courts are ignorant, don't get it, or whatever -- but when you consider the millions of fines and the convictions in the history of these disputes, it should give you pause to consider the present and continuing risks.

With those caveats, consider this a book reference rather than a review.  It's controversial; it's interesting.  Please do comment if you read it, and let's discuss it here!