Game theory, algorithms, and the Internet

Among the many characteristics of the Internet (huge and growing, available and unstructured, dynamic and chaotic), perhaps the most novel, distinguishing, and intellectually challenging one is that, unlike previous computational artifacts and systems, the Internet is built, operated, and used by a dazzling diversity of economic interests, in various degrees of collaboration and competition with each other. Consequently, it can be argued that the mathematical arsenal necessary for attaining an algorithmic and conceptual understanding of the Internet must include some kind of fusion between mathematical economics (especially game theory and its inverse problem, mechanism design) and algorithmic thinking. In this talk I shall survey recent formalisms and results aiming in this general direction, and discuss the research agenda that appears to be emerging.