David Hunter Tow has made a number of predictions regarding the future of the internet. He predicts “that within the next decade the Internet and Web may be at risk of splitting into a number of separate entities- fragmenting under technological, national, business and social pressures. In its place may emerge a network of networks – continuously morphing- linking and fragmenting, with no central dominant domain backbone; instead a disconnected, random structure of networks with information channeled through uncoordinated switching stations and content hubs, controlled by a range of geopolitical, social and enterprise interests.”

The article continues, “For authoritarian states such as China, North Korea, Iran and Syria as well as criminal cartels, this will facilitate the expansion of their operations, allowing them to circumvent exposure of illegal activities in much the same way as the current Darknet network…  At the same time white hat hacker groups plan to launch their own communication satellites linked to a grid of tracking stations in order to avoid such Government surveillance and interference, as discussed at the recent Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.”

“But,” it continues, “Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon as well as Cable and Internet TV companies have already begun to fragment the web to support their own Walled Garden strategies of quarantining and manipulating membership data, applications, entertainment, search results and identities. Facebook membership data cannot be transferred to other social sites. Adobe’s Flash software as well as a number of developer applications were banned by Apple, which means the iPhone browser cannot display a large portion of the Internet. Likewise Amazon’s Kindle will only display books on sale or for rent by the company. Google Plus fails to adequately attribute search results to original sources and multiple Ids are banned. Such social sites have become closed silos, similar in many respects to those of authoritarian sites such as China.”

Read more about the supposed future of the internet and the semantic web’s role in it here.

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