Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.

The era of the American Internet is ending.

Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network's first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.

And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence - and conceivably military - consequences.

American intelligence officials have warned about this shift. "Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge," Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006. "We also need to protect that edge, and we need to protect those who provide it to us."

Indeed, Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the NSA had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications.

Some Internet technologists and privacy advocates say those actions and other government policies may be hastening the shift in Canadian and European traffic away from the United States.

"Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S.," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches."

The issue was driven home this month when hackers attacked and immobilized several Georgian government Web sites during the country's fighting with Russia. Most of Georgia's access to the global network flowed through Russia and Turkey.

Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota, added, "We discovered the Internet, but we couldn't keep it a secret." While the United States carried 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic a decade ago, he estimates that portion has fallen to about 25 percent.

New York Times - August 30, 2008, By JOHN MARKOFF