Who controls the internet and how IP addresses work
Nobody owns the internet. You hear that a lot, and it is true, but it is also misleading. While no single entity owns the network as a whole, specific organisations control its essential moving parts: IP address allocation, domain name management, technical protocol coordination and the operation of the DNS root servers. Without these organisations, the internet simply would not work.
The internet has no boss, but it has a structure
The internet is a network of networks. Thousands of operators, companies and institutions connect their infrastructures to one another following shared rules. These rules are not imposed by a single government or corporation. They are defined by a set of technical organisations, each responsible for a specific layer of the system.
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) coordinates the global allocation of domain names and IP addresses. Created in 1998 in California, ICANN was initially under contract with the US Department of Commerce. Since 2016 it has operated independently under a multi-stakeholder governance model that includes governments, businesses, technical organisations and civil society.
IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) is a function operated by ICANN. It is IANA that manages the DNS root zone (the starting point for every domain name resolution), allocates IP address blocks to regional registries, and maintains the registries of internet protocols (port numbers, protocol types, etc.).
How IP addresses are distributed
An IP address is a unique number assigned to every device connected to the internet. It is the equivalent of a postal address: without it, data would not know where to go. There are two versions: IPv4 (four numbers separated by dots, such as 192.168.1.1) and IPv6 (a much longer hexadecimal sequence, such as 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334).
IP address distribution follows a strict hierarchy. IANA allocates large address blocks to five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), each covering a geographic area:
- RIPE NCC: Europe, Middle East, Central Asia
- ARIN: North America
- APNIC: Asia-Pacific
- LACNIC: Latin America and the Caribbean
- AFRINIC: Africa
These RIRs then allocate smaller blocks to internet service providers (ISPs), hosting companies, businesses and institutions that request them. Your ISP receives a block of addresses from the RIR in your region, then assigns you an individual address when you connect.
This hierarchical system ensures that no IP address is assigned twice anywhere in the world. If two devices had the same IP address on the internet, data would no longer know who it was meant for, and the network would stop functioning.
IPv4 is exhausted, and that changes a lot
IPv4 allows only 4.3 billion addresses in total (2 to the power of 32). In February 2011, IANA distributed its last IPv4 blocks to the regional registries. Since then, each RIR has gradually depleted its own pool. AFRINIC, the last to run out, reached exhaustion in January 2020.
Today, obtaining public IPv4 addresses means buying them on the secondary market, where they trade for between $30 and $60 each. It is a finite resource, like radio frequencies or telephone numbers.
To compensate, ISPs make heavy use of CGNAT (Carrier-Grade NAT), which lets multiple households share a single public IPv4 address. This is transparent for basic web browsing, but it causes problems for home server hosting, certain online games and services that require a dedicated IP address.
The long-term solution is IPv6, which offers 340 sextillion addresses (2 to the power of 128). Enough to assign billions of addresses to every grain of sand on Earth. Deployment is progressing, but as of 2026, roughly 45% of global internet traffic uses IPv6 according to Google's measurements. The transition is slow because it requires every link in the chain (ISPs, routers, servers, applications) to support the new protocol.
The other organisations that keep the internet running
Beyond ICANN and the RIRs, several technical organisations play essential roles:
The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) defines the technical standards of the internet. It is the IETF that created the HTTP, TCP/IP, DNS, TLS protocols and most of the standards your browser uses on every page you visit. The IETF operates openly: anyone can propose a standard or join the discussions. Standards are published as RFCs (Request for Comments), a format that has existed since 1969.
The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), founded by Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the Web), defines web standards: HTML, CSS, JavaScript APIs, accessibility. The W3C deals with the web as an application that runs on the internet, not with the internet itself.
Root server operators manage the 13 groups of DNS root servers (named A through M). These servers are the starting point for all DNS resolution. They are operated by a mix of organisations: Verisign, ICANN, the US military, NASA, universities and non-profits. Thanks to anycast technology, these 13 groups actually correspond to more than 1,700 physical servers distributed around the world.
Submarine cables: the physical infrastructure
The internet is physical before it is virtual. Over 95% of intercontinental traffic travels through fibre optic cables laid on the ocean floor. There are roughly 550 active submarine cables in 2026, totalling more than 1.4 million kilometres. The main owners or co-owners of these cables are private companies: Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon own or co-fund a growing share of this infrastructure. Legacy telecom operators (Orange, AT&T, NTT) also hold a significant portion.
If a submarine cable is cut (by a ship's anchor, an undersea earthquake or sabotage), traffic is rerouted via other paths, but with a loss of bandwidth and an increase in latency. In January 2022, the volcanic eruption in Tonga severed the country's only submarine cable, leaving 100,000 people without internet for several weeks.
ISPs: the last link in the chain
Your internet service provider (ISP) is the company that physically connects you to the global network. In the UK, the main ones are BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk. In the US, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Every country has its own ISPs, and some markets are far more concentrated than others.
Your ISP assigns you an IP address (public or shared via CGNAT), routes your traffic to the servers you want to reach, and runs the default DNS servers your device uses. It is also the ISP that decides on the access technology (FTTP fibre, cable, DSL, fixed 4G/5G) and the quality of service you receive.
A point many people miss: your ISP can see which sites you visit if your DNS queries are not encrypted. This is one of the reasons why switching DNS servers (to Cloudflare, Google DNS or Quad9 with DNS over TLS) is recommended for improving your online privacy.
Who can "shut down" the internet?
Since the internet is decentralised, nobody can switch off the global network with a single move. But at a national level, a government can order domestic ISPs to cut access or block certain services. This has happened in Iran, Myanmar, Russia and several African countries in recent years.
The methods vary: total cutoff of international traffic, DNS blocking of specific domains, filtering via deep packet inspection (DPI), or deliberate bandwidth throttling. VPNs and tools like Tor can bypass some of these blocks, but not all, and their effectiveness depends on how sophisticated the censorship is.
ICANN, for its part, has always refused government requests to remove national domains from the global DNS. In 2022, Ukraine asked for the revocation of Russia's .ru and .рф domains. ICANN refused, arguing that its mission is technical rather than political, and that revoking a national domain would set a precedent endangering the stability of the system.
Your IP address, your footprint on the network
Every time you connect to the internet, your ISP assigns you an IP address. That address is visible to every website you visit and every online service you use. It reveals your approximate location (city or region, not your exact address), your ISP, and whether you are using IPv4 or IPv6.
Your IP address can be static (always the same) or dynamic (changed regularly by the ISP). Most residential connections use dynamic addresses. If you are behind CGNAT, the IP address websites see is shared with other subscribers at your ISP, which makes individual identification harder but can also cause problems if another user sharing the same IP gets blocked from a service.
Nobody owns the internet, but it only works thanks to a handful of technical organisations that coordinate address allocation, name resolution and communication standards. Understanding this structure means understanding why your connection works, why IPv4 addresses are becoming scarce, and why your IP address is both your passport to the network and a piece of information you should protect.