| In today's world, the Internet has been described as the American Wild West, a chaotic place where no rules or laws are to be found and to some, nor should there be. Internet freedom is the idea where information should be allowed to be read by anyone with access and with assurance the data reaches its intended recipients. However with the rise of cybercrimes, nation state censorship, and increasing government agency involvement, entities that use the Internet have been unknowingly asking for rules and regulation of Internet conduct. The purpose of this research was to analyze and determine if there is a need for Internet governance. The research intended to determine if current standards were perceived as being enough to allow the Internet to function moving forward, examine if Internet users and their respective issues would influence Internet governance, and can a centralized authoritative body be able to govern the Internet at the international levels. Much has been written, conferences and think-tanks dedicated to discussing the issues, however there has not been an internationally accepted oversight entity created. In lieu of globally accepted standards, several countries have begun the process of implementing rules and applying governance to the Internet within their borders, termed as balkanization. Studies indicated Internet users perceived having government control of the Internet would stifle their use, its growth, and their freedom of expression. The challenge has been at what layer of the Internet and by who would governance be applied. The results indicated a mixed model would be feasible, some layers would benefit from a centralized governance entity and other layers would function with a multistakeholder governance framework. The conception of Internet chaos is not to be eliminated, as it leads to creativity and innovation, it needs a framework were it can exist.;Keywords: Cybersecurity, Paul Pantani, Net neutrality, ICANN, Balkanized Internet, NETmundial, CIGI. |
