In 2014 America will lose its grip on the Internet

Since the internet is the business of HOL, I was interested to read an article about the future of the internet from NESTA today amongst its predictions for 2014:- 

If 2013 was the year of Edward Snowden's revelations about NSA spying, 2014 will be the year the world reacts. Last year, the US lost its moral leadership of the Internet, and this year it will lose its technical leadership as well.

Bornof the US defence establishment, the Internet has always struggled to cut its apron strings. Until the late 1990s, it was still directly under the control of the US government, which amongst other jobs, handed out the online equivalents of names and addresses.

Since then, governance has formally moved to NGOs, giving the appearance of internationalism. But Snowden's revelations give lie to this illusion: the essential components of today's Internet - the cables, hardware, software, services and standards - remain predominantly American.

This will soon end. The rising technological might – and technological independence – of the BRICs, and the general trend towards open innovation, make this inevitable.

Change is already afoot. Deutsche Telekom has reportedly modified routing rules to keep traffic from traversing the US and Brazil intends to go even further............

To read the remainder of the article, see The Internet cuts its US apron strings on NESTA