Nationalization and the internet
On a daily basis, I deal with people from five different countries across multiple timezones, that isn’t even counting the traffic that my sites generate from just about every country in the world. As such, how can anybody label their online enterprise as being (name your country)?
The reality of the internet start-up
The internet, by it’s very definition, has no boundaries. Unlike land, it’s only limited by the number of hard drives, processors and electricity used to run it. You require no passport to visit a server in another country to view a site anymore then you are required to explain your intentions of visiting said site to any governments. I think the sooner we ditch this “country-centric” idea of our world, the better as it’s making less sense the more we progress towards a virtual economy. When a company is virtual, by its very essence, no longer geographically based. Servers might be in one country, investors another, employees or contractors in another and marketing/sales being handled by a third party in yet another country. Web start-ups are the equivalent to an instant multi-national conglomerate with a global outreach and audience.
Nationalism and the internet
Now, this brings up another topic of interest to me, the whole idea of nationhood. Any person who reads through a few pages of history will soon realize that countries come and go with the passing of time incredibly frequently. I find this interest in geographically isolating the internet puzzling because as explained earlier, the internet isn’t attached to any physical areas, it’s virtual, simply made up of light pulses moving from A to B. It doesn’t have any mass, it doesn’t have surface nor any boundaries… so what is up with this notion of trying to attach one to it? Nationalism has as much to do with the future of the internet as teaching toads to sing a national anthem.
Problems with attaching a nation to the internet
The internet is global and virtual, so whose laws governs them? The internet is still being controlled by national interests, ICANN, who assigns .coms, is based out of the United States but has influence in just about every country out there. It’s a badly kept secret that ICANN wishes to escape the grips of the US Government which invented the internet. Currently, the lifeblood of a online company, the domain, is governed by the laws of the country of the registrar, not where the company is based. Bodog.com learned this the hard way last year when it’s very profitable online gambling business was almost put under because it failed to follow-up with lawyers in the USA, even though none of it’s “physical” business was based in the States. Bodog.com lost it’s domain because the registrar who held the domain was based in the United States, it had assumed US laws didn’t apply to them as they where not based in the United States.
Promotions based on geographic location
I believe promoting an online presence specific to any particular country is a mistake many start-ups do. I don’t care a website is based in Palestine or Tuvalu for that case, if the site has something of interest to me, I will visit it. As such, limiting your audience, unless it’s a critical aspect of the business, makes no sense at all. I welcome site from any and every country on my sites, the origin is of no significance… this is globalization at it’s purest essence! As such, categorizing start-ups by country when they are essentially an online virtual company serving a global audience doesn’t make much of any sense.
The Bottom Line
The internet is the world’s first step towards a global government.
Buzvia: ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
