In short it is either nobody or a whole lot of people. It’s sort of like asking who owns the ocean; there are a lot of people that use the ocean and the ocean touches every single continent and pretty much anyone from any country can go see the ocean at any point in time. Sure, we have different names for different oceans, but really those are artificial boundaries placed on nature by humankind, its one big body of water. Looking at the Internet like this, you can see that no one really owns it. There are different organizations that have different claims to the Internet, in the same way that different governments and private owners own boats and oceanfront property, so as a user there is no way that you would have access to literally everything. But then again, what gives you access to the Internet? ISPs or Internet Service Providers (the main ISPs: UUNET, Level 3, Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, Sprint, and IBM), which allow you to gain access to the Internet through a router. There is a big difference between Internet access and having Internet service. Internet access is just being able to use the Internet and getting Internet service is where you pay one of the aforementioned ISPs for access to the Internet. Its like when playing on the part of the beach that is privately owned. The owner pays rent on that property and part of the ocean, but with the right amount of sneakiness, you can pee on “his” ocean property. Basically, you can do whatever you would like on the Internet, but a lot of what you may like to do will cost you money. Pretty much anything that you find to be truly amazing will cost money (except facebook).
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