Preface

In 1999, in a book entitled _The_Control_Revolution,_ journalist and legal
scholar Andrew Shapiro described two futures that the Internet might
take.[p-1] The first was the familiar story of increased individual freedom, as the
network gave us greater control over our lives, and over the institutions, in-
cluding government, that regulate our lives. The second was a less familiar
warning -- of the rebirth of technologies of control, as institutions "dis-
intermediated" by the Internet learned how to alter the network to reestab-
lish their control.

Shapiro saw good and bad in both futures. Too much dis-intermediation,
he warned, would interfere with collective governance; some balance was
needed. But likewise, efforts to rearchitect the Net to reenable control
threatened to undermine its potential for individual freedom and growth.

Shapiro did not predict which future would be ours. Indeed, his argu-
ment was that bits of each future were possible, and that we must choose a
balance between them. His account was subtle, but optimistic. If there was
a bias to the struggle, he, like most of us then, believed the bias would favor
freedom.

This book picks up where Shapiro left off. Its message is neither subtle
nor optimistic. In the chapters that follow, I argue that we are far enough
along to see the future we have chosen. In that future, the counter-
revolution prevails. The forces that the original Internet threatened to trans-
form are well on their way to transforming the Internet. Through changes in
the architecture that defined the original network, as well as changes in the
legal environment within which that network lives, the future that promised

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