As to the question of who owns it. There is a big drive to commercialize the Internet. With the commercialization of the Internet you might loose what the Internet was founded on , the ability to get and share information freely from all over the world. The Internet is composed of many things. Definitions Browsers Browsers are programs that read Web pages and allow you to get and read other peoples' Web pages.
Mail is sent and composed through many programs.
One such program is called pine. To send someone mail one only needs the internet address of the person that you are sending the message to. FTP sites FTP sites are other networks that people connect to get information. One simply connects to an FTP site as an anonymous user. Once you are connected all you need to do is locate the information you want and get it if you are allow access to it.