The political intrigue of Republican vs Democrat seems endless: diluted messages, political ideologies attacking each other and confusion as to which side is which. This cloud can be thicker than pea soup.

Here we are talking about another intrigue: the Internet. But before we start, we need to clarify some basic facts. The Internet as we know it was not invented in the early 1990s. That is when it opened to public usage. Two different groups used the Internet long before our access started: the U.S. military at the end of World War II, and then universities. Originally, the Internet was called the ARPANET.

Map 1971

Or, as Arthur C Clarke said it best in 1974:

As we all know, the Internet grew exponentially. In the 1990s, when it became public, the private sector grabbed a chunk of it. This chunk has steadily grown, and at present 7.1 billion people are connected to the internet.

With these early facts on the table, we can proceed to present-day. If you listen to the conservative side of the story, the leftists (democrats, etc.) are willing to hand over control of the Internet to just about anyone and diminish American prominence around the globe.

As an allegory, we’ll use Prometheus and Zeus. Prometheus stole the legendary fire from the Olympian gods for the lower mortal humans & was later punished by the gods.  When an eagle was hungry it will attack & eat his organs. (For bringing fire to humanity.)  Thus will it be used wisely by the masses?

Putting aside the blame and arbitrage of smoke and mirrors, let’s remember the Internet as we know it was handed off from others. The fear today is the wrong people will garner control and mismanage its use. Politicians, for instance, may use it to control populous citizens because the Internet has become a driving force for transparency, change and some forms of classic liberalism.

These fears are well-founded and realistic, depending upon which end of the spectrum you find yourself. Republicans will say Obama is to blame, but events often transpire out of nowhere. That is to say they aren’t always so carefully arranged.

Here are some more facts:

In 2006, under the Bush Administration and a House and Senate controlled by Republicans, an idea that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce should gradually hand over reigns to the Internet was introduced. This idea suggested the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) should be in control. To read further, go here.

Is this idea politically charged? To be fair, ICANN is not a new organization. It has been around since 1998. Every domain before that was organized by IANA, a different but still existing organization.

What IANA Is in 3 minutes

What ICANN Is

ICANN is a California-based organization with its physical location in Canada. It’s hard to determine if future events will change the Internet. Censorship may even appear, although there are 7.1 billion “netizens.” Here’s a breakdown of those numbers:

ICANN’s WHOIS Campaign  

 Updated March 31st 2014