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Today everyone from the jilted lover to the Al Qaeda is using the Internet to get back at his or her adversary. Terrorist groups use the Net to garner support, raise funds, recruit members and share information. The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies estimates that the total number of terrorist websites have grown from under one hundred in 1996, to well over 5,000 today. However the Net is proving to be more dangerous as a potent planning weapon by providing terrorists with anonymity, command and measures to coordinate attacks.

Though the Internet has been revolutionary as an inexhaustible source of information, a brilliant channel for commerce, and as a means of communication, there is a need to control it. The networks we have created may become a threat to the financial, physical and moral stability of the world if not monitored and protected.

The Web is also  a source of financing for these terrorist outfits. In its "Anti-Money Laundering Report 2005," KPMG estimated that $590 billion to $1.5 trillion are laundered through the global economy annually. Money laundering, which was traditionally aligned with crimes like drug trafficking, fraud and theft, is now linked with financing of terrorism, trafficking in people and tax evasion. Internet banking, has given this illegal industry a big fillip as locating money launderers has become more difficult than before.

A wide variety of online scams ranging from fraudulent lottery schemes, credit-related ploys, web page hijacking, and identity theft owe their advent to the Internet, and have been constantly growing. A report by the European Consumer Centre Network shows that e-commerce complaints have doubled between 2004 and 2005. According to the Annual Fraud Report from CyberSource, a provider of secure electronic payment software, online payment fraud cost retailers more than $3 billion in 2006.

Crime against children is arguably the most heinous of crimes against humanity and the Internet has only helped perpetrate it through child pornography, online sexual solicitation, cyber stalking and bullying. According to the report Violence against Children in Cyberspace by

ECPAT International, abuse through new technologies cause deep, pervasive and lasting psychological damage to child victims. A 2002 report by ECPAT International and the Bangkok Post estimated that 100,000 child pornography web sites existed in 2001. This number doubled by 2003.

There exists a vacuum in Internet governance and a need for a monitoring body to prevent such mayhem as above. The US through the ICANN wields unmatched authority over the Internet. With this authority also comes responsibility to monitor the Net. However due to its strategic interests the US is ignoring this need.

A paper by Texas University professor S.R. Salbu, which appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology states that since the Internet spans the globe and enables worldwide interactions, its monitoring needs to be addressed within the framework of international law. There is need for the ICANN to set up standards to monitor the Net and ensure that it does not become the Achilles heels of globalisation and the knowledge economy, of which it is a major facilitator.

Email author: radhieka.mittal@hindustantimes.com