Getty Images Finding the best way to get from Point A to Point B is easy if you’re drawing a straight line on a piece of paper, but when Point A is your computer and Point B is a website halfway around the world, things get a bit trickier. In the latter case, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the routing protocol used by the global internet, is used to find the best path by weighing the latest network conditions based on reachability and routing information. BGP manages how data packets get delivered between the large networks that make up the internet and makes it possible for the internet as we know it to operate efficiently.