The Internet is a public collaboration. No one person, organization, or group of organizations owns it. As it grew from a small network of four computers used in research for the United States defense establishment into a public system comprised of hundreds of commercial telecommunication networks of all sizes, thousands of institutions, hundreds of thousands of businesses, and millions of individual users. Several organizations each participate in maintaining some kind of order to the Net. The Internet continues to be influenced by governments around the world.
Some governments determine how accessible the Internet is and who can access it.
Democratic goverments are concerned about defense security, children's access to pornography, and the regulation of and provision of fair access to telecommunications infrastructure. All rights reserved.