Understanding the Regulatory Context of the Internet

Internet as an advanced technological medium, which requires an orientation on key elementary issues: first, its history, and second, the technological aspects behind it which means the software and hardware that altogether compose the infrastructure of the network. It describes the whole picture for the Internet as a regulatory context. It provides a brief history of the development of the Internet since its early days until recently. It then attempts to define the term 'Internet', looking at the network's infrastructure and then at the services it provides for the users. It also deals in brief with the regulatory issues originating from the distinctive nature of the Internet as a global network. The paper will lay down the background against which self- and co-regulation methods arose as alternative regulatory arrangements that are able to cope up with the complexity of the Internet.