Dear Ayden,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I would recommend reading at least pages 1-3, 14, and 23-24 and of the Supreme Court judgment, which is at:
I wonder to what extent the court’s thinking was influenced by the fact that the law they struck down did not refer to the Internet, but to the “Web”. I’m sure we all agree that there is only one World Wide Web, so the correct usage is the proper noun, Web, when referring to the WWW (as opposed to using web to refer to the generic technology, as in “a private company can operate a private web, also referred to as an intranet”).
Be that as it may, the court referred to “the Internet” or “the internet” without defining either term. As I’ve explained elsewhere[1] there are many definitions of the term “Internet”. The one that I like best is the 1995 definition of the US Federal Networking Council[2]:
“the global information system that:
(i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons;
(ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and
(iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein."
This definition would appear to me to apply to a particular global system, which system should be referred to by a proper noun, that is “the Internet”.
However, it is interesting to note that the telephone network is also a global system that is (i) logically linked together by a globally unique address space and (ii) is able to support communications using protocols. Yet nobody would think of referring to the telephone network with a proper noun, as “the Telephone Network”. Is that because the telephone network does not provide high-level services on top of its infrastructure?
That is, do we think of “the Internet” because of “the World Wide Web”? And, if there were no World Wide Web, would we think of “the internet” as infrastructure, which is what Justice Alito seems to do?
Thanks again and best,
Richard
[1] Richard Hill (2014), "The Internet, its governance, and the multi-Stakeholder model", Info, vol. 16. no. 2, March 2014
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On Sun, 2 Jul 2017, Richard Hill wrote:
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Also interesting: oral argument from oyez.org:https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-1194I recommend a whole thing, one of my favourite excerpts:-----Elena KaganSo -- so a -- so a person in this situation, for example, cannot go onto the President's Twitter account to find out what the President is saying today?Robert C. MontgomeryThat -- that's correct, Your Honor.Elena KaganNot only the President.I mean, we're sort of aware of it because the President now uses Twitter. -----Marcin CieślakInternet Society Poland
From: InternetPolicy [mailto:internetpolicy-bounces@elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Ayden Férdeline
Sent: Saturday, July 1, 2017 19:50
To: Roland Perry
Cc: internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org
Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] Capital I or small i(nternet)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Internet Policy] Capital I or small i(nternet)
Local Time: April 23, 2017 3:06 PM
UTC Time: April 23, 2017 2:06 PM
I'm old enough to regard the correct term as 'Internet' not 'internet';
for example in regular press releases, news stories etc.
Does ISOC (or is that iSOC) have advice about this for the world at
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