who owns the internet?? as far as i think nobody!!! so if i am right, then my question is how does yahoo, godaddy and other companies gets the rights for
selling the domain names

www.ICANN.org

google.com followed by verisign.com

As far as I know, nobody really owns the Internet, but there are various organizations given respnsibility for various parts of the internet. For example, ICANN are responsible for assigning domain names with IP addresses, and ARIN and various other groups are responsible for assigning those IP addresses. I'm sure you could find a lot of information about this kind of thing by doing a Google search and probably by checking Wikipedia (wikipedia.org).

United States of America?
:) just a guess

I own the internet.
Got any questions? www.google.com

I'd recommend checking out icann.org as earlier mentioned: And there are a few decent resellers out there as well: www.enom.com -- if you're interested in selling domains yourself but don't have the kind of means to 'get there'.

I own the internet.
Got any questions? www.google.com

I'd recommend checking out icann.org as earlier mentioned: And there are a few decent resellers out there as well: www.enom.com -- if you're interested in selling domains yourself but don't have the kind of means to 'get there'.
I'd like to add that if you want to go the eNom route - you should take a look at www.domainsmarty.com

wipo.int have responsability for policing the main TLD domain names.
Other than that, nobody really owns the internet, although it only exists with the permission of Chuck Norris.

thanks guys thanks for the nice info

there are internet gods out there called uberleet's they own the internet. Then comes the n00bs and other such gangs. All in all the internet g0ds seem to be VERY rich! j/k

No one owns the internet. However, its going to be quite difficult for the average person to use it without being able to navigate it via domain names. ICANN gets the priveledge of being the domain name overseer.

--Tina

me me me and me

While no one "really" owns the internet, whenever I bring up the internet up in a conversation with friends somehow Google manages to make it's way into it... Go figure.

No one owns the internet. The internet is made up of many servers/datacenters located around the world that host webpages just like this one. The internet is universal thus this causes many problems regarding law enforcement, and other legal issues.

Certain organizations have been designated to oversee the disturbution of domain names.

As mentioned, no one in particular owns the internet, companies however make part of the internet by supplying people with internet access. The internet comprises of many many computers connected together. It's like if you go to LAN party, who owns the LAN? I guess the person who owns the hub, but it also comprises of all the clients connected to the hub.

ISPs form a part of the internet but don't own it, organisations such as ICANN however administrate most Top Level Domains, which again...form PART of the internet. No one ownes the internet, it's just a glorified massive network.

There is also ARIN which assigns IP's to the companies that are part of the internet.

the internet is public domain (no pun intended).

While the military let go of their grande notions to use the internet exclusively for security purposes, the hubs were used primarily by educational institutions to exchange research data. The advent and reduced costs of personal computers meant that many people had the opportunity to access the benefits of internet use. I'm certain the originating scientists must be mighty pleased with both the good and bad of their invention because the original idea behind the internet was to promote the free exhange of ideas between people.

Did Al Gore give up his ownership rights after inventing the internet? :)