Data

The arrival on the market of “hyperconnected” glasses is raising many questions on the increasing mediation of social relationships through digital tools. “Google Glasses” are designed to be permanently connected to the Internet, and can be worn all day long to add digital information to our “natural” field of vision and to record our various actions.

Automobile sounds contain information on the technical state of the car; these sounds can be used to monitor the car while driving, and, in case of a flaw, to diagnose its source. For German car mechanics, listening to car sounds was, since the institutionalization of the trade in the 1930s, a legitimate entrance to diagnostic knowledge. The introduction of new diagnostic equipment in the 1950s contested the epistemic status of diagnostic listening.

How has the Internet come about in Europe? How did the “network of networks” and ICTs become political stakes for EU institutions? This chapter proposes to shed light on facts, limits and tensions of the building of a political Union in the ICT regulation field. It analyses the role of various stakeholders, from technical experts to ordinary citizens, according to an historical approach structured around three key notions: appropriating, governing and using the Internet.