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The Internet and Public–Private Governance in the European Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2006

GEORGE CHRISTOU
Affiliation:
European Politics, University of Warwick
SEAMUS SIMPSON
Affiliation:
Communication Policy, Manchester Metropolitan University

Abstract

The EU plays a significant role in public policy aspects of Internet governance, having created in the late 1990s the dot eu Internet Top Level Domain (TLD). This enables users to register names under a European online address label. This paper explores key public policy issues in the emergent governance system for dot eu, because it provides an interesting case of new European transnational private governance. Specifically, dot eu governance is a reconciliation resulting from a governance cultural clash between the European regulatory state and what can be described broadly as the Internet community. The EU has customised the governance of dot eu towards a public–private dispersed agencification model. The paper extends the evidence base on agencification within trans-European regulatory networks and the emergence of private transnational network governance characterised by self-regulation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Research for this paper was undertaken as part of the UK ESRC European Regulation of Internet Commerce project (Grant number RES-000–22–0356).