The Internet Governance Map

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the system networks use to tell one another which parts of the Internet they can deliver traffic to. These announcements help routers choose a path from one network to another. Because BGP is central to how the Internet connects, mistakes, attacks, or false announcements can redirect or intercept traffic and make entire services or regions unreachable.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) improve the speed and resilience of websites and applications by storing copies of their content on distributed servers, so users can retrieve it from a nearby location instead of the origin server. Their position between online services and their users also lets many providers absorb attacks that overwhelm services, manage encrypted connections, and filter automated traffic, including large-scale content collection for AI training.

Blockchain and crypto-asset ecosystems are financial and application layers that run on top of ordinary Internet, hosting, and cloud infrastructure. They include wallets, exchanges, smart contracts, and token-based services, with distributed forms of governance that increasingly involve State regulation.

Hidden services, such as Tor onion services, are websites and other services reached through privacy-focused networks built on top of the Internet. These networks use specialized routing to conceal where services are hosted and make them harder to identify or block, which changes both security assumptions and governance dynamics.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the distributed system that translates domain names into IP addresses and other service records. It lets people use readable names instead of numbers, while also serving as a key control point for delegation, resolution, security extensions, and domain-level policy enforcement.

Email is a major end-user messaging channel built on SMTP and mailbox access protocols, with messages passing between many independently operated providers and servers. It is both everyday communications infrastructure and a major target for abuse, making authentication, reputation, filtering, interoperability, and provider policy central governance issues.

Hardware manufacturers design and produce routers, switches, servers, optics, chips, and other equipment on which networks and datacenters depend. Their design choices influence capacity, interoperability, supply-chain risk, observability, and security.

Host/Cloud is the execution layer of the Internet: datacenters, colocation facilities, hosting providers, and cloud platforms that run applications, store data, and expose services to users. It is the main junction where connectivity, naming, compute, security, and platform power intersect.

IANA is the global coordination function for unique Internet identifiers, including protocol parameter registries, DNS root zone management, and top-level allocation of number resources. It sits at a narrow but critical administrative chokepoint in the Internet's logical infrastructure.

The Internet is the global network of networks formed by interconnection, routing, and operational coordination among Autonomous Systems. In the map, it carries data between networks, connecting users to hosting services and applications.

IP addresses allow traffic to reach devices and networks across the Internet. Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) identify the networks that exchange routing information. Coordination of these identifiers keeps them distinct, while decisions about their allocation and use affect connectivity, the availability of addresses, and who is responsible for them.

Internet Exchange Points are interconnection facilities where networks exchange traffic directly, usually through peering rather than paid transit. IXPs can lower cost and latency, localize traffic, and materially affect resilience and routing economics.

Physical infrastructure is the material foundation of Internet connectivity: fiber routes, ducts, poles, towers, landing stations, cables, power, and facilities. Control over this layer influences capacity, geographic reach, outage risk, and the practical limits of network expansion.

Platforms are governed digital environments such as social networks, marketplaces, app ecosystems, and large SaaS services. Unlike ordinary websites, they do not just publish content or offer a page; they organize participation among many users, businesses, and creators while setting rules for visibility, ranking, access, monetization, and moderation at scale.

Registrars sell and manage domain registrations for their customers, working directly with registries through standardized protocols and contracts. For generic domains such as .com, they must be accredited by ICANN; country-code domains follow the rules of their respective registries. Registrars handle registration data, transfers, and abuse reports, and give customers the tools to manage their domains.

Registries manage domain extensions such as .com or .pl, maintaining the official registration database and publishing the DNS records for that extension. Their policies and contracts shape who can register a domain, pricing, technical operations, data safekeeping, and abuse response.

Resellers are retail intermediaries that sell domain names and related services through a registrar's accreditation and infrastructure rather than holding accreditation themselves. They add distribution reach, but can also make it less clear who is responsible for support and enforcement.

Regional Internet Registries allocate and register IP address blocks and Autonomous System Numbers under community-developed policies for their service regions. They anchor number-resource governance between global coordination and local operational use.

Search engines are discovery and visibility intermediaries that crawl, index, rank, and direct users toward public web content. They are not just another destination on the Web: they strongly shape what can be found, which publishers receive traffic, and how visibility, competition, information quality, and removal practices are governed.

Spam is unsolicited bulk messaging or repetitive content that floods websites, search results, and messaging channels. It can spread phishing, fraud, and malware, or manipulate what people see. The map groups these related forms of abuse here because they exploit ordinary services and are addressed through authentication, reputation systems, filtering, provider policy, and law enforcement.

Tier 1 ISPs are large backbone networks that can reach the entire Internet without buying IP transit, relying on their customer networks and traffic exchange with other networks without payment between peers. They exert outsized influence over routing paths, resilience, and interconnection economics.

Tier 2 and Tier 3 ISPs include regional transit providers, national carriers, and access networks that connect enterprises, households, and local institutions to the wider Internet. They usually mix purchased transit, peering, and last-mile operations, making them central to end-user connectivity and policy enforcement.

VPNs create private connections over shared networks, often using encrypted tunnels. They can connect users or offices to a private network, or route Internet traffic through a provider. They can improve privacy or security, while changing who handles the traffic, what gets logged, and which jurisdictions apply.

The Web is the environment of linked pages, content, and applications accessed through browsers over the Internet. In the map, it also includes websites reached through privacy networks such as Tor, often called the dark web. It is broader than any single website or platform; the separate Hidden Services node explains how some services conceal where they are hosted and use specialized networks for access.

Websites are publisher-controlled web properties and applications delivered through hosting, DNS, HTTP, and often CDN layers. They are the basic public publication unit of the Web: the thing a school, newspaper, company, government, or individual most directly operates and presents to users, making them a key locus for security, content control, analytics, and discoverability.