Who Owns the Internet?

The Internet is more of a concept than an actual tangible entity, and it relies on a physical infrastructure that connects networks to other networks.

There are organizations that oversee and standardize what happens on the Internet and assign IP addresses and domain names, such as the National Science Foundation, the Internet Engineering Task Force, ICANN, InterNIC and the Internet Architecture Board.

IP address (Internet Protocol)

an identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination.

Domain names
used to identify one or more IP addresses. Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain(TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. gov - Government agencies edu - Educational institutions org - Organizations (nonprofit) mil - Military com - commercial business net - Network organizations ca - Canada th - Thailand