A Global Approach to the Spatial Diversity and Dynamics of Internet Domains

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to describe the place of individual countries in digital space through the lens of Internet domains and specific websites. We will discuss the global geography of domains in reference to states and other entities of spatial organization, and changes in the positions of individual websites. These issues will be approached with an awareness of the significant changes taking place in the functioning of the Web, particularly cyberbalkanization. This study mainly used data from Alexa rankings, the best free source of information available on the behavior of Internet users. One conclusion is the clear U.S. dominance over other countries in relation to number of most popular domains. Despite the clear U.S. dominance, the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—play an increasingly significant role in the geography of domains. The trends discussed in this article are related to the so‐called balkanization of the Internet. Regulations of its functioning and the growing importance of national websites and search engines have contributed to deepening the differences between Internet users in different countries.

Key words:

• Alexa ranking
• cyberbalkanization
• domain geography

Notes

1. Zook claims that domains can be treated as indicators of the global development of Web content (2001).

2. Alves discusses the term “Internet Balkanization” in detail (2014).

3. The IP address of yahoo.com.jp, mentioned in the first part of this paper, is 183.79.135.206.

4. Given the problems with estimating the origins of gTLDs, it is worth noting that all (Choi and Park 2014), or some (for example, 50 percent of the .com domains) are sometimes attributed to the United States (Shiode and Batty 2000).

5. The latter is a gTLD intended for institutions involved in the promotion of the Catalan language and culture.

6. According to Zook, the proportion of U.S. websites in the total number of websites (not only the most popular million) was 33.3 percent in 2003 and 54.6 percent in 1999 (2005).

7. In the context of changes in the number of IP addresses, it should be mentioned that the pool of Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) addresses has been exhausted. The need to move to IPv6, providing a virtually infinite number of addresses, may in the initial phase contribute to changes in the ability to access to Web content or even temporary isolation of certain communities from certain websites. The current rate of adoption of IPv6 is varied (for example, due to financial reasons) and is dominated by the U.S. and European countries (see Levin and Schmidt 2014; Tadayoni and Henten 2016).

8. In order to allow for a direct comparison, only domains that were present in the Alexa rankings in each of the analyzed combinations were taken into account, presenting a total of 271.

9. By mid‐2013, there were more than 18,000 sites with the .cn domain extension among the top one million websites ranked by Alexa there had been an upward trend until that point. However, in early 2014, there were only 8,400 sites of this type.

10. According to Internet Live Stats, China had the largest number of Internet users at 640 million in 2014, followed by India in 3rd place (243 million), Brazil in 5th (107 million), and Russia in 6th (84 million).

11. “Internet balkanization” is also referred to as “cyberbalkanization” and “splinternet.”

12. This transparency is apparent because online phenomena generally imitate offline phenomena.

13. On 1 September 2015, there were registered over 864 ths. websites with .рф domain, according to stat.nic.ru.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Krzysztof Janc

Dr. K. Janc Department of Spatial Management, Institute of Geography and Regional Development, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland; [[email protected]].