Q: Who runs the internet?

A: Officially, no one. However, a number of international groups contribute to its maintenance by deciding standards for hardware and software, the protocols for how many aspects of the net should work and be administrated, and trying to work out social and political issues.

Q: Why isn't there one central point of management?

A: Because of the unstructured way in which the net developed. Launched as a US defence department project from the late 1960s, the net moved out of the research sphere by the 1980s as many companies and universities began to go online. When the World Wide Web - a way of viewing the internet's content in a more comfortable, visual way - was overlaid on to the net, it made the network much easier and intuitive to use and quickly took off with the wider public. Although technically not the same, the internet and the web are now generally synonymous in most people's minds, but there are other ways of accessing the internet.

Q: Sounds messy. How does it possibly all work?

A: Management has always been dependent on broad consensus among the net's international users. Administration remains surprisingly open for such an important resource. For example, anyone can attend and contribute to the three annual meetings of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which met in Dublin last week.