geekosystem

As it currently stands, a series of non-profit United States organizations play host to the Internet's technical aspects and especially domain registration, which the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN handles. That could potentially change this year. The International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency on telecommunications, is hosting the World Conference on International Telecommunications in December. Some say the conference will push for control of the Internet to pass to the U.N., which the U.S. has said they will resist.

This December, 193 United Nations delegates will meet in Dubai to discuss the Internet and to what extent the UN should be involved, specifically whether or not the United Nations should be more involved. That being the case, U.S. lawmakers are discussing the matter ahead of time to solidify the country's stance on the matter. Ironically, after all the legislation that's been popping up recently, officials seem to be all for a deregulated Internet when the regulatory body in question is not the U.S. government.

According to the International Telecommunication Union, "the leading United Nations agency for information and technology communication issues," the Internet will surpass 2 billion users by the end of this year. Seeing as how the world's population is close to 7 billion, about 30% of the entire world will be Internet users by the end of 2010. Another fun fact: 65% of the population in Europe is online, 55% of the population in the Americas is online, 21.9% population in the Asia/Pacific regions is online, and 9.6% of the population in Africa is online. (via Mashable)