The privatization of internet infrastructure in the United States governmental institutions cede their proprietary claims and regulatory authority over digital systems to private firms.

Funded by a $28,000 grant from Stanford University, "Securing internet access for vulnerable communities: A multisector approach" explores how a neoliberal narrative motivated the National Science Foundation to relinquish control over the ownership and management of internet cables in the early 1990s. Analyzing internal documents from the Foundation's archive, I demonstrate that its privatization decision was premised on the notion that market incentive would catalyze infrastructure development and inaugurate a new economy. In the wake of privatization, market incentive indeed underwrote the expansive construction of internet cables, and, as I argue in "The concept of digital capitalism" (2018), the policy contributed to the maturation of the technology industry by establishing a market in internet service provision. Yet market incentive also compelled internet service providers to avoid cable construction in economically-disadvantaged areas, creating access disparities that compounded structural inequalities and that continue to prevent marginalized communities from accessing critical digital utilities.

Through a postmortem of privatization, this grant project develops a framework for multisector infrastructural governance that addresses structural obstacles to internet access by allocating regulatory authority to market, state, and civil society actors. This framework will be distributed through a technology policy handbook that details the composite structure and enduring problems of infrastructural governance. As a set of policy proposals, the handbook is intended for lawmakers, technologists, and civil society advocates who work in the space. As a topical introduction with accessible language and professional illustrations, it addresses an increasingly-curious general public concerned with the state of technology.

Header image. Barrett Lyon’s Opte Project, a visualization of the routing paths of the internet. Image under creative commons license, courtesy of the Opte Project. See Lyon’s other projects at www.opte.org/the-internet.