The scramble for .africa

THE ruler-straight lines and strange squiggles of Africa’s borders are a reminder of how the continent was carved up by European powers around a conference table in Berlin at the end of the 19th century—with scant regard for the wishes of its inhabitants. (Several squiggles represent the shifting of a port or mountain into a different country.) Now a virtual version of this scramble for Africa is taking place in a court in California, over ownership of the continent’s internet address, or technically its “generic top-level domain” (gTLD).