19

Chapter 2
Internet History
Raphael Cohen-Almagor
University of Hull, UK

ABSTRACT
This paper outlines and analyzes milestones in the history of the Internet. As technology advances,
it presents new societal and ethical challenges. The early Internet was devised and implemented in
American research units, universities, and telecommunication companies that had vision and inter-
est in cutting-edge research. The Internet then entered into the commercial phase (1984-1989). It was
facilitated by the upgrading of backbone links, the writing of new software programs, and the growing
number of interconnected international networks. The author examines the massive expansion of the
Internet into a global network during the 1990s when business and personal computers with different
operating systems joined the universal network. The instant and growing success of social networking-
sites that enable Netusers to share information, photos, private journals, hobbies, and personal as well
as commercial interests with networks of mutual friends and colleagues is discussed.

INTRODUCTION liocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth and

hence humanity from the center of the universe.
History consists of a series of accumulated The second was Charles Darwin (1809–1882),
imaginative inventions. who showed that all species of life have evolved
~ Voltaire over time from common ancestors through natu-
ral selection, thus displacing humanity from the
Floridi (2009, 2010) argues that we are now expe- centre of the biological kingdom. The third was
riencing the fourth scientific revolution. The first Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who acknowledged
was of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), the first that the mind is also unconscious and subject to the
astronomer to formulate a scientifically-based he- defence mechanism of repression, thus we are far
from being Cartesian minds entirely transparent
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2931-8.ch002 to ourselves. And now, in the information revo-

Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
 Internet History

lution, we are in the process of dislocation and infancy until its giant presence. In fifty years
reassessment of humanity’s fundamental nature (1960-2010) the technology advanced rapidly.
and role in the universe. Floridi argues that while This has been an age of innovation where ideas
technology keeps growing bottom-up, it is high have driven the development of new applica-
time we start digging deeper, top-down, in order tions which, in turn, have driven demand. Then
to expand and reinforce our conceptual under- we witness circularity. New demands yielded
standing of our information age, of its nature, less further innovation and many more new applica-
visible implications and its impact on human and tions – email, the world-wide-web, file sharing,
environmental welfare, giving ourselves a chance social networking, blogs, skype. These were not
to anticipate difficulties, identify opportunities imagined in the early stage of the net.
and resolve problems, conflicts and dilemmas. This essay examines milestones in the history
This essay focuses on the milestones that led of the Internet, how the Internet evolved from
to the establishment of the Internet as we know it the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA,
today, from its inception as an idea in the 1950s 2004) in 1957, its formative years (1957-1984)
until the early 21st Century. The varied and com- until nowadays; from the early Internet devised and
plex social and technological transformations implemented in American research units, universi-
we witness today have their roots in the way the ties, and telecommunication companies that had
Internet has been developed through research vision and interest in cutting-edge research until
grants from the U.S. Department of Defense’s a global phenomenon. I highlight the entry of the
Advanced Research Projects Agency. Scientists Internet into the commercial phase (1984-1989),
wished to maintain communication links between facilitated by the upgrading of backbone links,
distant locations in the event that electrical rout the writing of new software programs and the
had been destroyed. The early Internet was devised growing number of interconnected international
and implemented in American research units, uni- networks; the massive expansion of the Internet
versities, and telecommunication companies that into a global network during the 1990s when busi-
had vision and interest in cutting-edge research. ness and personal computers with different oper-
The program grew in the 60s and 70s, becoming ating systems joined the universal network; the
a network of computers that transmitted informa- instant and growing success of social networking
tion by “packet switching.” -- sites that enable Netusers to share information,
The network of computers was from the start photos, private journals, hobbies and personal as
an open, diffused and multi-platform network that well as commercial interests with networks of
up until the 1990s developed in the United States mutual friends and colleagues. The technology
and then, within a few years, expanded globally has transformed into a quotidian network for
in impressive pace and with no less impressive identifying, sharing and conveying information
technological innovations the end of which we and ideas, exchanging graphics, videos, sounds
are yet to witness. and animation to hundreds of millions of Netusers
The interdisciplinary field of Technoethics around the world.
is concerned with the moral and ethical aspects
of technology in society. The Internet plays a
crucial world in today’s technology and society THE FORMATIVE YEARS
(Luppicini, 2010). In order to understand how
the Internet became an integral part of our lives, The history of the Internet started in the United
it is crucial to examine its history and the major States in the early 1960s. This was the Cold War
developments that took place from its modest period, when the world was bi-polar: The United

20
Internet History

States and the Soviet Union were competing in RAND study on secure voice considered nuclear
expanding their influence in the world, viewing war. However, the later work on Internetting did
each other with great caution and suspicion. emphasize robustness and survivability, including
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the capability to withstand losses of large portions
the first space satellite, Sputnik. The Sputnik of the underlying networks.”4 Leonard Kleinrock,
success necessitated American reaction. It was a the father of Modern Data Networking, one of the
question of pride and leadership. The US Depart- pioneers of digital network communications who
ment of Defense responded by establishing the helped to build ARPANAET, explained that the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, reason ARPA wanted to deploy a network was to
2004),1 designed to promote research that would allow its researchers to share each others’ spe-
ensure that the USA compete with and excel over cialized resources (hardware, software, services
the USSR in any technological race. ARPA’s mis- and applications). It was not to protect against a
sion was to produce innovative research ideas, military attack.5 And David D. Clark, Senior re-
to provide meaningful technological impact that search scientist at MIT Laboratory for Computer
went far beyond the convention evolutionary Science who worked in the ARPANET project in
developmental approaches, and to act on these the early 1970s, said he never heard of nuclear
ideas by developing prototype systems.2 One of survivability and that there is no mentioning of
the ARPA offices was the Information Processing this idea in the ARPA records from the 1960s. In
Techniques Office (IPTO) which funded research a personal communication, Clark wrote:
in computer science designed to mobilize Ameri- I have asked some of the folks who pushed
can universities and research laboratories to build for the ARPAnet: Larry Roberts and Bob Kahn.
up a strategic communication network (Command They both assert that nobody had nuclear sur-
and Control Research) that would make available vivability on their mind. I was there from about
messaging capabilities to the government (Curran 73, and I never heard it once. There might have
& Seaton, 2009; Conn, 2002). been somebody who had the idea in the back of
A popular myth holds that the Department his mind, but 1) if so, he held it real close, and 2)
of Defense scientists thought that if the Soviet I cannot figure out who it might have been. We
were capable to launch satellites, they might as know who more or less all the important actors
well be capable to launch long-distance nuclear were. (Sadly, Licklider has died, but I think I did
missiles. Because networks at the time relied on a ask him when he was still alive. I wish I had better
single, central control function, so the myth goes, notes.) So I am very confident that Baran’s objec-
the main concern was networks’ vulnerability to tive did not survive to drive the ARPA effort. It
attack: Once the network’s central control point was resource sharing, human interaction… and
ceased to function, the entire network would be- command and control.6
come unusable. The scientists wanted to diffuse In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider became the first di-
the network so it could be sustained after attack- rector of the Information Processing Techniques
ing one or more of its communication centers Office. His role was to interconnect the Depart-
(Schneider & Evans, 2007).3 They had in mind ment of Defense’s main computers via a global,
a “decentralized repository for defense-related dispersed network. Licklider articulated the vision
secrets” during wartime (Conn, 2002, p. xiii). of a “galactic” computer network—a globally
However, the pioneers of the ARPA Network interconnected set of processing nodes through
project argue that ARPANET was not related to which anyone anywhere can access data and
building a network resistant to nuclear war: “This programs.7 In August 1962, Licklider and Welden
was never true of the ARPANET, only the unrelated Clark published the first Paper on the concept of

21
 Internet History

the Internet titled “On-Line Man Computer Com- he called packets, and the technique became
munication.”8 They saw communication network known as packet-switching. Davies’s network
as a tool for scientific collaboration. Here the design was received by the ARPA scientists. The
seeds for what would later become the Internet Arpanet and the NPL local network became the
were planted. first two computer networks in the world using
Paul Baran (1964) of the RAND Corporation the technique (Kleinrock, 2008).11
deserves particular attention not only because his The ARPANET was launched by Bolt Beranek
research project created the myth that connected and Newman (BBN) at the end of 1969.12 BBN
ARPANET to the development of a robust de- was commissioned to design four Interface Mes-
centralized network that would enable the US a sage Processors (IMPs), machines that would
second-strike capability. Baran (1964) had been create open communication between four different
commissioned by the United States Air Force to computers running on four different operating
study how the military could maintain control systems, thus creating the first long-haul computer
over its missiles and bombers in the aftermath network and connecting between the University of
of a nuclear attack. In 1964, Baran proposed a California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the Stanford
distributed scheme for U.S. telecommunications Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, Califor-
infrastructure with no central command or control nia, the University of California at Santa Barbara
point that would survive a “first strike.” In the (UCSB), and the University of Utah which together
event of an attack on any one point, all surviving comprised the Network Working Group (NWG).13
points would be able to re-establish contact with A fifth ARPANET node was installed at BBN’s
each other.9 Note that Baran’s research project headquarters. Each node consisted of an IMP,
came about six years after ARPA was established. which performed the store-and-forward packet
Lawrence G. Roberts, the principal architect of switching functions. Packet switching was a new
ARAPNET, wrote that the Rand work had no and radical idea in the 1960s. Via ARPANET’s
significant impact on the ARPANET plans and Network Control Protocol (NCP), users were able
Internet history (Roberts, 1999). to access and use computers and printers in other
In 1965, Donald Davies of the British National locations and transport files between computers.
Physical Laboratory (NPL) began thinking about This was an investigational project that explored
packet networks and coined the term “packet.” In the most favorable way of building a network that
fact, at that period of time three scientists in three could function as a trustworthy communications
different locations were thinking independently medium. The main hurdle to overcome was to
about that same technology: Leonard Kleinrock develop an agreed upon set of signals between
was the first to develop the underlying principles different computers that would open up com-
of packet switching. His ideas, drafted at the MIT munication channels, enabling data to pass from
labs in 1961, constituted an important milestone in one point to another. These agreed upon signals
the development of the Internet.10 Baran at RAND were called protocols.
formulated the idea of standard-size addressed Essentially common grammatical tools of a
message blocks and adaptive alternate routing technological language, protocols allow for con-
procedures with distributed control. And Davies versations between any two computers so that
thought similarly that to achieve communication anyone anywhere can search for and receive (or,
between computers a fast message-switching conversely, create and send) text, graphic images,
communication service was needed, in which long and audio and video files (Dubow, 2005).14 The
messages were split into chunks sent separately so experimental project was based on open dialogue,
as to minimise the risk of congestion. The chunks where scientists posted Requests for Comments

22
Internet History

(RFC), on free exchange of information and ideas, leads to another. In the early 1970s, scientists tried
on collaboration rather than competition.15 There to overcome new problems. The new communica-
were no barriers, secrets or proprietary content. tion ideas, the experiments, the testing, and the
Indeed, this free, open culture was critical to the tentative designs, brought about an endless stream
development of new technologies and shaped the of networks that were ultimately interlinked to
future of the Internet. The NCP was a great suc- become the Internet. Someone had to record all the
cess, enabling the linking together of researchers protocols, the identifiers, networks and addresses
at remote sites. At the time, only hard-core com- and the names of all the things in the networked
puter scientists knew of this network’s existence universe. And someone had to keep track of all the
(Spinello, 2000).16 information that stemmed from the discussions.
In those early days, the seeds of what will That someone was Jonathan B. Postel, a young
come to be known the Internet architecture and computer scientist who worked at that time on the
trade-marks were planted. The directors of ARPA’s ARPA project at UCLA (Cerf, 1998). Postel de-
Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), voted himself to building and running the Internet’s
Robert Taylor and Larry Roberts, allowed consid- naming and numbering structure. He proposed the
erable freedom and flexibility in research. They top-level domains dot-com, dot-edu, and dot-net
imposed minimal requirements in terms of prog- (Hafner & Lyon, 1998).18 In those pioneering,
ress reports, meetings, site visits, oversight and unstructured and building years, Postel was, in
other customarily bureaucratic mechanisms that effect, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
are so prevalent in many organizations. Kleinrock (IANA). Postel was not elected to the position of
(2008, p. 12) wrote: “We felt strongly that control responsibility he held in the Internet community;
of the network should be vested in all the people he was simply, in the words of the White House’s
who were using the Net and not in the carriers, Internet policy adviser, Ira Magaziner, “the guy
the providers or the corporate world.” they trust”.19
The network then expanded to other institu- Secondly, the ARPANET succeeded in con-
tions, including Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, necting the computers used in different time-
Case Western Reserve and University of Illinois sharing systems. Now they wished to connect
at Urbana. Within sixteen months there were the packet switching network of the ARPANET
more than ten sites with an estimated 2,000 users with a satellite packet switching network and a
and at least two routes between any two sites for packet radio packet switching network. In July
the transmission of information packets (Slevin, 1970, the first packet radio ALOHANET, based
2000; Conn, 2002). ARPANET was the world’s on the concept of random packet transmission, was
first advanced computer network using packet developed at the University of Hawaii by Norman
switching. Leonard Kleinrock wanted to develop Abramson and became operational. ALOHANET
a design methodology that would scale to very linked the University of Hawaii’s seven campuses
large networks, and the only way he thought was to each other and to the ARPANET. Based on this
available to accomplish that was to introduce the model, ARPA built its own packet radio network
concept of distributed control, wherein the respon- which was called PRNET (Ryan, 2011). At that
sibility for controlling the network routing would same period of time, ARPA also developed a
be shared among all the nodes, and therefore, no satellite network, called SATNET.
node would be unduly tasked.17 This resulted in In 1971, UNIX operating system was devel-
robust networks. oped at Bell Lab, quickly gaining the apprecia-
One of the major characteristics of the emerging tion of many scientists. UNIX provides a suite
network is innovation. One development quickly of programs which makes the computer work. It

23
 Internet History

is a stable, multi-user, multi-tasking system for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

servers, desktops and later on also for laptops.20 In (TCP/IP) organizes the data into packages, put
1972, ALOHANET connected to the ARPANET them into the right order on arrival at their desti-
and a commercial version of ARPANET, called nation, and checked them for errors.
TELNET, became the first Public Packet Data Most of the applications use the client/server
Service. The Telnet protocol was a relatively model. A request is made for a particular service
simple procedure. It was a minimal mechanism from the client to the server. The server responds
that permitted basic communication between two or the conversation continues between the client
host machines.21 Telnet applications allow users and server until one of the participants ends it
to log on and to operate remote computers. Such (Cerf & Kahn, 1974; Langford, 2000). By 1983, all
applications can, for example, be used to search networks connected to the ARPANET made use of
and consult remote databases such as library TCP/IP and the old Network Control Protocol was
catalogues. replaced entirely. From then on, the collection of
A year later, in 1973, ARPANET was connected interconnected and publicly accessible networks
to international hosts. File transfer Protocol (FTP) using the TCP/IP protocols came to be called the
came into existence and worked using a Client “Internet” (Slevin, 2000).24
Server Architecture.22 The file-transfer protocol ARPANET grew into the Internet based on
specified the formatting for data files traded over the idea that there would be multiple independent
the network. FTP made it possible to share files networks of rather arbitrary design (Leiner et al.,
between machines. Moving files might seem 1997). The term “Internet” was first used by Vint
simple, but the differences between machines Cerf and Robert Kahn in their 1974 article about
made it very difficult. FTP was the first applica- the TCP protocol (Cerf & Kahn, 2000). The im-
tion to permit two computers to cooperate as peers portance of the TCP/IP protocol in the history of
instead of treating one as a terminal to the other the Internet is so great that many people consider
(Hafner & Lyon, 1998). Telnet, FTP and TALK Cerf to be the father of the Internet. A number
were the first applications to become available of TCP/IP-based networks – independent of the
on ARPANET and are still used in some form or ARPANET – were created in the late 1970s and
another on the Internet today. TALK was the first early 1980s. The National Science Foundation
program that allowed Netusers to engage in a real- (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network
time conversation over the network (Slevin, 2000). (CSNET) for educational and research institu-
Netusers typed messages onto a split screen and tions that did not have access to the ARPANET
read replies written at the bottom of the screen. (Schneider & Evans, 2007).
In early 1973, the network had grown to 35 Though the original design of the ARPANET
nodes and was connected to 38 host computers was for resource sharing, it quickly demonstrated
(Rubinstein, 2009). That year, Norway and Eng- its utility as a message system. Soon researchers
land were added to the network and traffic had understood how useful the network can be for the
expanded significantly. In 1974, Vint Cerf and transmission of communication. They continu-
Robert Kahn developed a set of protocols that ally sought to improve this characteristic of the
implemented the open architecture philosophy.23 network. In 1973, Lenny Kleinrock sent the first
These new protocols were the Transmission Con- personal message over ARPANET; Ray Tomlinson
trol Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). of Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) wrote the
TCP includes rules that computers on a network first email program. The @ sign was introduced
use to establish and break connections; IP includes as a means of punctuating email addresses, sepa-
rules for routing of individual data packets. The rating the user name on the left from the site or

24
Internet History

computer identifier on the right.25 Electronic mail to transmitting computing news and facilitating
grew first among the elite community of com- discussions among employees of university com-
puter scientists on the ARPANET. They found it puting departments on topics such as operating
effective, convenient, easy to use and obviously systems and programming languages (Schneider
much less time consuming than any other mode of & Evans, 2007). Later Usenet developed into
communication. From its inception, email lacked a world-wide distributed discussion system. It
formality and small-talk. It was a business tool consists of a set of newsgroups on specified sub-
to pass messages. Soon emailing bloomed across jects. “Articles” or messages are posted to the
the Internet. While the ARPANET’s creators did newsgroups and these articles are then broadcast
not have a grand vision for the invention of an to other interconnected computer systems via
earth-circling message-handling system, once the a wide variety of networks. The Usenet routes
first couple of dozen nodes were installed, early messages by topic, rather than by individual
Netusers turned the system of linked computers or through a mailing list. Any Netuser can post
into a personal as well as a professional commu- messages while others can view and reply to the
nications tool (Hafner & Lyon, 1998). Seventy posted messages. Some of the newsgroups are
five percent of the ARPANET traffic was email moderated for approval before appearing in the
(Jenkins, 2001). ARPANET became a sophisti- newsgroup. Others are not.27
cated email system. The early 1980s saw the continued growth
On June 7, 1975, Steve Walker, a program man- not only of the ARPANET but also of other net-
ager at ARPA’s Information Processing Techniques works. The Joint Academic Network (Janet, n. d.)
Office, announced the formation of an electronic was established in the United Kingdom to link
discussion group which he called Message Ser- universities there. It consists of a large number
vices Group (MsgGroup) (Chick Net, n. d.). He of sub-networks that connect between the UK’s
sought to establish a group of people concerned education and research organizations and between
with message processing in order to determine “1. them and the rest of the world. In addition, Janet
What is mandatory; 2. What is nice; 3. What is includes a separate network that is available to the
not desirable in email functions” (Hauben, 1998). community for experimental activities in network
Walker wrote that his goal was not to establish development.28 In 1982, the ARPANET had 200
another committee, but to see if dialogue can de- hosts and a year later the network grew to 500
velop over the Net. He was creating a prototype hosts (Spinello, 2000).29 In 1983, ARPANET, and
form to utilize computer conferencing to deter- all networks attached to it, officially adopted the
mine its capabilities (Hauben, 1998). This was an TCP/IP networking protocol.30 Mailing lists, in-
example of how the ARPANET and the Internet formation posting areas (such as the User’s News
were developed: Setting up a prototype, inviting Network, or Usenet, newsgroups), and adventure
comments, checking feasibility, and developing games were among the new applications appearing
the prototype further to accommodate needs. on the ARPANET (Schneider & Evans, 2007).
In 1979, USENET, a “poor man’s ARPANET,” An important undertaking, very relevant for
was created by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and technoethics, took place in October of 1981, when
Steve Belovin to share information via email and a discussion group was formed on a computer
message boards between Duke University and message system at the Xerox Palo Alto Research
the University of North Carolina, using dial-up Center. Recognizing that computer profession-
telephone lines and the protocols in the Berkeley als in other areas might share similar concerns,
UNIX distributions (Hauben & Hauben, 1997).26 the group debated the merits of forming an
The original Usenet News Service was devoted organization dedicated to raising the awareness

25
 Internet History

of the profession and the public with regard to Military Network) would be reserved for military
the dangers inherent in the use of computers in uses that required greater security. Connections
critical systems. They wished to devise common were developed so that users could communicate
principles to guide technological innovations between the two networks. In 1986, the number of
and application to benefit society in an ethical Internet hosts increased to 5000. By 1987, when
and responsible fashion. In June 1982, the group the number of hosts reached 10,000, congestion
adopted the name Computer Professionals for on the ARPANET caused by the limited-capacity
Social Responsibility - CPSR. Up until the mid leased telephone lines was becoming complicated.
1980s, CPSR focused nearly all of its energy on To trim down the traffic load on the ARPANET, a
the dangers posed by the massive increase in the network run by the National Science Foundation,
use of computing technology in military applica- called NSFnet, merged with another NSF network,
tions. It became known for its fierce opposition called CSNet, and with BITNET to compose one
to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which network that could carry much of the network
President Reagan announced in early 1983.31 traffic. As the civilian network became increas-
In 1983, a mere 500 computer hosts were ingly commercial, budget limitations impelled the
connected to the Internet. In 1984, the number U.S. government’s departure from participation in
of hosts increased to 1024.32 As more researchers the Internet’s structure. In turn, private telecoms
connected their computers and computer networks companies entered the picture (Cerf, 2008; Lang-
to the ARPANET, interest in the network grew ford, 2000). The civilian network’s use widened
in the academic community. One reason for in- as a consequence of the proliferation of computer
creased interest in the project was its adherence networks, and became more varied. Grassroots
to an open architecture philosophy: Each network networks were established by university students.
could continue using its own protocols and data- Merit Network, Inc., IBM, Sprint, and the State
transmission methods internally. There was no of Michigan were contracted to upgrade and
need for special accommodations to be connected operate the main NSFnet backbone.33 By the late
to the Internet, there was no global control over 1980s, many other TCP/IP networks had merged
the network, and all could join in. This open or established interconnections (Schneider and
architecture philosophy was revolutionary at the Evans, 2007).
time. Most companies used to make their networks In 1988, the NSFnet backbone was upgraded
distinct and incompatible with other networks. to DS-1 (1.544 Mbps) links, which was able to
They feared competition and strove to make their handle more than 75 million packets a day. This
products inaccessible to competitors. The shift to innovation immediately yielded further expansion
an open architecture approach is one of the most of the Internet. The number of Internet hosts broke
celebrated features of the Internet. to 100,000.34 The NSFnet began to encompass
many other lower-level networks such as those
developed by academic institutions. Gradually, the
ENTERING THE Internet as we know it today, a maze of intercon-
COMMERCIAL PHASE nected networks came about (Spinello, 2000). Can-
ada (CA), Denmark (DK), France (FR), Iceland
During the mid-1980s, the Internet entered its (IS), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE) connected to
commercial phase. In 1984, the Department of NSFnet.35 The first transatlantic fiber-optic cable
Defense split the ARPANET into two special- was installed, using glass fibers so transparent that
ized networks: ARPANET would continue its repeaters (to regenerate and recondition the signal)
advanced research activities, and MILNET (for were needed about 40 miles apart. Linking North

26
Internet History

America and France, the 3,148-mile shark-proof NeXTStep) and most of the communications soft-
cable was capable of handling 40,000 telephone ware, defining URLs (Uniform Resource Locator,
calls simultaneously.36 The same year, Jarkko webpage address), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer
Oikarinen wrote a communications program that Protocol between a server and clients) and HTML
extended the capabilities of the Talk program for (interactive HyperText Markup Language).40 His
his employer, the University of Oulu in Finland. hypermedia software program enabled people
He called his multiuser program Internet Relay to access, link and create communications in a
Chat (IRC). By 1991, IRC was running on more single global web of information. The web was
than 100 servers globally. IRC’s popularity grew superimposed on the Internet and incorporated
among scientists and academicians for conducting its protocols. The web thus marked the coming
open discussions about theories, experiments and together of three different strands of innovation:
innovation (Schneider & Evans, 2007). Personal computing, networking, and connective
In 1989, number of hosts reached 159,000.37 software (Curran & Seaton, 2009).41 Using hyper-
Australia (AU), Germany (DE), Israel (IL), Italy links embedded in hypertext, Netusers acting as
(IT), Japan (JP), Mexico (MX), Netherlands (NL), producers of information link up files containing
New Zealand (NZ), Puerto Rico (PR), and the text, sound and graphics to create webpages. The
United Kingdom (UK) connected to NSFnet.38 sources of information linked in this way can be
William Wulf proposed the idea of a collaboratory located on any computer that is also part of the
which argued for the creation of tools to allow web. Each information source may itself be linked
linked computers to be used as a rich environ- to an indefinite number of webpages. Hypertext
ment for computer-based collaboration. The term and hyperlinks allow Netusers acting as receiv-
merged “collaboration” and “laboratory” to de- ers of information to wander from one source
scribe a “center without walls, in which the nation’s of information to another effortlessly, deciding
researchers can perform their research without for themselves which information they wish to
regard to geographical location--interacting with have transferred to their browser and which link
colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing they want to explore or to skip (Slevin, 2000).42
data and computational resources, and accessing Netusers could also index the data they possess
information in digital libraries” (Kouzes, Myers, and search for further data.
& Wulf, 1996).39 This idea was certainly apt for
the evolving technology, in line with the raison
d’être that drove the founding architects of the THE MASSIVE EXPANSION
Net and one that continues to prevail throughout
the history of the Internet to date. By the late 1980s, a significant number of people
Also in 1989, Englishman Tim Berners-Lee, a (mostly professionals) were using email but the
researcher at the Organisation Europeenne pour la Internet was not in the public eye. I was a student
Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) in Geneva, proposed at Oxford University at that time and can testify
the idea of an international system of protocols: that using the Internet was a most frustrating
Building a distributed hypermedia server which experience. Most websites were not accessible.
would allow Netusers to prepare electronic Navigating between sites was anything but seam-
documents that are composites of, or pointers to, less. It was easier to retrieve information from the
many different files of potentially different types, library in the good, old-fashioned way.
scattered across the world. Berners-Lee called it But things were soon about to change. During
the World Wide Web (WWW). He wrote the first the 1990s we witnessed a massive expansion of
WWW client (a browser-editor running under the Net. The Internet’s accessibility, its multi-

27
 Internet History

application and its decentralized nature were there were 623 Websites in the world.46 The United
instrumental in this rapid growth. Business as Nations came on-line and the NSFnet expanded
well personal computers with different operat- internationally as Bulgaria (BG), Costa Rica
ing systems could join the universal network. (CR), Egypt (EG), Fiji (FJ), Ghana (GH), Guam
The Internet became a global phenomenon, more (GU), Indonesia (ID), Kazakhstan (KZ), Kenya
countries and people joined and ground-breaking (KE), Liechtenstein (LI), Peru (PE), Romania
minds expanded the horizons of the platform with (RO), Russian Federation (RU), Turkey (TR),
new, imaginative innovations. In 1990, the ARPA- Ukraine (UA), UAE (AE), and US Virgin Islands
NET project was officially over when it handed (VI) joined the network. The World Wide Web
over control of the public Internet backbone to the proliferated at a 341,634% annual growth rate of
National Science Foundation (Curran & Seaton, service traffic.47 By the end of 1993, there were
2009; Slevin, 2000). In 1991, the Internet Society 2.1 million hosts.48 The phenomenal growth and
was formed and Croatia (HR), Hong Kong (HK), success of the Internet were the result of techno-
Hungary (HU), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Singa- logical creativity, flexibility and decentralization
pore (SG), South Africa (ZA), Taiwan (TW) and as well as healthy curiosity of people who wanted
Tunisia (TN) joined the NSFnet network whose to be part of the scene.
backbone was upgraded to DS-3 (44.736 Mbps) In 1994, Cerf argued (1995) that the “Internet
as the traffic passed to 1 trillion bytes and 10 has gone from near-invisibility to near-ubiquity.”
billion packets per month. That year, 1991, saw The growth of the Internet, its expanding inter-
another milestone as the popular encryption pro- national character, and awareness to its effective
gram PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) was released by features brought more and more business to believe
Philip Zimmerman (1996).43 Unfortunately, PGP in the innovation and to invest in it. Shopping
presents a technological-ethical challenge with malls arrived on the Internet. First Virtual, the first
significant social implications as it is also used by cyberbank, opened up for business. Two Stanford
Net abusers. As PGP is freely available, powerful PhD students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, started
tool, it is used by criminals and radicals who wish out a website which they called “Jerry and Da-
to hide their Net identity in order to advance anti- vid’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” This guide
social behavior. In other words, encryption is a swiftly expanded and later changed its name to
double-sword crypto-assisted anonymity tool: It one word, Yahoo!49 More countries joined the
may enhance your privacy and anonymity but it network, including Algeria (DZ), Armenia (AM),
might also undermine your own security. Bermuda (BM), Burkina Faso (BF), China (CN),
In ethical terms, there is a conflict between Colombia (CO), Jamaica (JM), Jordan (JO),
anonymity, on the one hand, and trust and ac- Lebanon (LB), Lithuania (LT), Macao (MO),
countability on the other hand. Indeed, anonym- Morocco (MA), New Caledonia (NC), Nicara-
ity undermines accountability on the Internet: If gua (NI), Niger (NE), Panama (PA), Philippines
Netusers can hide their identity and be entirely (PH), Senegal (SN), Sri Lanka (LK), Swaziland
sure that no one knows they are the agent of (SZ), Uruguay (UY), and Uzbekistan (UZ). The
mischief, this might be an incentive for some number of Internet hosts increased to 3 million.
people to adopt norms and codes of behavior This necessitated technological accommodation
that they would otherwise be deterred to adopt.44 and, indeed, the same year, the NSFnet backbone
The Internet opened new horizons for criminals was upgraded to OC-3 (155mbps) links and the
and terrorists. volume of traffic increased to 10 trillion bytes per
In 1992, the number of Internet hosts broke month. To navigate between the growing numbers
to 1 million with almost 50 web pages.45 In 1993, of sites, the first version of the popular Netscape

28
Internet History

web browser was released by Mosaic Commu- ful information. The Internet was growing strong
nications Corporation.50 Mosaic made using the in a rapid pace, attracting more and more people
Internet as easy as pointing a mouse and clicking who grew to use it for their daily life: Finding
on icons and words (Hafner & Lyon, 1998). By information, research, business, commerce, en-
then, the birth pangs of the global network were tertainment, travel and essentially any need. For
over and information retrieval became efficient each and every need there came the entrepreneur
and effective. who seized the opportunity and opened a website
In 1995, major carriers such as British Tele- addressing the need.
com, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Swed- In 1996, the number of Netusers more than
ish Telecom, Norwegian Telecom, and Finnish doubled, from 16 million in 1995 to 36 million.54
Telecom, among many others, announced Internet From the mid-1990s, the development of the
services. An estimated 300 service providers were Internet took a new turn as a growing number
in operation, ranging from very small resellers to of large and medium-sized organizations started
large telecom carriers. More than 30,000 websites running the TCP/IP protocols on their internal
were in operation and the number was doubling organizational communication networks, called
every two months (Cerf, 1995). The growing “intranets.” For security purposes, intranets
importance of commercial traffic and commercial shielded themselves from the outside world by
networks was discussed at a series of conferences firewalls. These protection systems often allow
initiated by the National Science Foundation on for the exchange of information with the Internet
the commercialization and privatization of the via specified “gateways”. These private networks
Internet. The NSF first awarded a contract to are called “extranets” and allow organizations
Merit Network, Inc., in partnership with IBM to exchange data with each other. By 1997, the
and MCI Communication Corp., to manage and market for intranets and extranets was growing
modernize the Internet backbone. Then the NSF annually at a rate of 40 per cent worldwide (Slevin,
awarded three additional contracts: One to Net- 2000). The number of Netusers estimated to be
work Solutions, allowing them to assign Internet 70 million by the end of the year.55
addresses; second to AT&T to maintain Internet At that time, the number of hosts was about 10
directory and database services; third to General million with an untold number of links between
Atomics to maintain the provision of information them.56 Finding information on the web became,
services to Netusers. In 1995, the NSFnet was shut yet again, a tricky issue but for different reasons.
down completely and the American core Internet Connectivity was no longer the issue; rather, navi-
backbone was privatized (Curran & Seaton, 2009). gating and finding the information you needed
The result was that the number of hosts more in the growing maze was difficult. Addressing
than doubled in one year, reaching 6.6 million.51 this challenge, two Stanford graduate students,
The mid-1990s were the years when the Internet Larry Page and Sergey Brin, started to work on
established itself as the focal point for commu- a search engine which they called BackRub, as it
nication, information and business. A number of was designed to analyze a ‘back link’ on the Web.
Net related companies went public, with Netscape Later they renamed their search engine Google,
leading the pack with the 3rd largest ever NAS- after googol, the term for the numeral 1 followed
DAQ IPO share value.52 At the same time, many by 100 zeroes. They released the first version of
people began creating their own personal Web Google on the Stanford Website in August 1996
areas. Homepages and bookmarks were introduced (Battelle, 2005).57
to allow Netusers (about 16 million)53 to organize In 1997, the Fiber Optic Link Around the
their personal documents and to keep track of use- Globe (FLAG) became the longest single-cable

29
 Internet History

network in the world, providing infrastructure evolution of the Internet.60 ICANN has secured
for the next generation of Internet applications. long-term commitments of funding from registries
The 17,500-mile cable began in England and ran and registrars to support its Internet-coordination
through the Strait of Gibraltar to Palermo, Sic- activities, including the performance of the IANA
ily, before crossing the Mediterranean to Egypt. functions which came under its control.
It then went overland to the FLAG operations Large corporations became more aware of the
center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, crossing massive potential of the Internet. America Online
to the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, and Anda- (AOL), Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Inktomi,
man Sea; through Thailand; and across the South Yahoo! and Cisco caught the attention of Wall
China Sea to Hong Kong and Japan.58 With this Street valuations. AOL alone had seen its stock
infrastructure, that year alone some fifty additional rise 50,000 percent (McCracken, 2010). In 1998,
country domains were registered. The Internet AOL acquired Netscape Communications Corpo-
became truly international and the number of ration for a stock transaction valued at $4.2 billion.
Internet hosts broke to 16 million.59 The number Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400 million. In
of host computers grew to more than 36.7 mil- 1999, online retailers reported 5.3 billion sale.61
lion in mid-1998 while the number of websites By December 1999, the total number of Ne-
had grown to 1.3 million. The number of sites tusers worldwide was estimated to be 248 mil-
was doubling every few months (Jenkins, 2001). lion.62 For the fourth year running, the number of
By 1998, there were approximately 150 million Netusers was growing in an extraordinary pace,
Netusers in more than 60 countries, representing doubling from one year to another. The United
about 2.5 percent of the world’s population. The States, Western Europe and affluent parts of Asia
vast majority, or 130 million of those users, was produced much of the content of the web, while
located in the 15 most industrialized countries. the rest of the world continued to contribute very
Thus, despite its dramatic growth, large dispari- little (Curran and Seaton, 2009). In 2000, the USA
ties in Internet access and usage persisted. A more produced almost two-thirds of the top thousand
accurate examination of the late-90’s Internet most visited websites. It accounted for 83% of the
usage reveals a user rate of 6.5 percent in a small total pageviews of Netusers. Less than 10% of the
number of high-usage nations and only a 0.5 world speaks English as their first language, but
percent usage rate in the remaining 200 countries English was becoming intelligible to a growing
(Langford, 2000; Spinello, 2000; Paré, 2005). number of people, and has begun to assume the
There were clear differences between developed function once occupied by Latin in medieval Eu-
and developing countries. There still are. rope. In the late 1990, an estimated 85% of the web
The same year, 1998, the Internet Corporation was written in English (Curran & Seaton, 2009).
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN, 2010) This picture, however, was rapidly changing.
was established. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit In 2000, there were 361 million Netusers and
corporation with participants from across the world the ten millionth domain name was registered.63
dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable The number of websites exceeded 50 million with
and interoperable. ICANN promotes competi- a growing number of Internet Service Providers
tion and develops policy on the Internet’s unique (ISPs) (Jenkins, 2001). BBC News Online (Postel,
identifiers. It does not control Internet content, 1998) reported that 50 percent of the U.S. popu-
cannot stop spam, and it does not deal with access lation had home Internet access. In Europe as a
to the global network. But through its coordina- whole (despite high distribution in Scandinavia,
tion role of the Internet’s naming system, it does Britain, and elsewhere) the proportion was as low
have an important impact on the expansion and as 4 percent, and only 3 percent in Russia. In China

30
Internet History

the figure was not much above 1 percent, and in advance anti-social, violent purposes like terrorism
Africa it was 0.016 percent (Schuler & Day, 2004). and child pornography. In July 2003 Myspace was
Subsequently, these figures have grown, in some founded by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe.
cases dramatically, but large disparities still exist. MySpace allows members to create unique per-
Not only legitimate businesses realized the sonal profiles online in order to find and com-
potential of the Internet. Criminals were also municate with old and new friends. The services
quick to abuse the Internet for profit. On June 22, offered by MySpace include any MySpace branded
2001, the European Council finalized its interna- URL (the “MySpace Website”), the MySpace in-
tional Convention on Cybercrime and adopted it stant messaging service, the MySpace application
on November 9, 2001.64 This was the first treaty developer service and other features..66 MySpace
addressing criminal offenses committed over the became the most popular social networking site in
Internet. The same year, Firewall Enhancement the United States. In June 2006, there were more
Protocol (FEP) was proposed, and Jimmy Wales than 100 million MySpace users. It is estimated that
and Larry Sanger launched “Wikipedia,” the web every month over ten million American teens log
based free encyclopedia. It is a collaborative, on to MySpace. However, in 2008 Myspace was
multilingual project supported by the non-profit overtaken internationally by its main competitor,
Wikimedia Foundation. Its 17 million articles Facebook.67 Facebook.com was founded on Febru-
(over 3.3 million in English) have been written ary 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin,
by volunteers around the world, and almost all of Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes (Carlson,
its articles can be edited by anyone with access to 2010). Facebook started as a social network for
the site.65 Wikipedia became the largest and most American universities but in September 2006 the
popular general reference resource on the Internet. network was extended beyond educational institu-
The same year, 2001, there were 513 million tions to anyone with a registered email address.
Netusers and English ceased to be the language The site remains free to join, and makes a profit
of the majority of users. English fell to a 45 through advertising revenue.
percent share (Kleinrock, 2008). The following In addition to the abovementioned features, as
year, broadband Netusers exceeded the number of 2007, Facebook users can give gifts to friends,
of dial-up users in the United States (Kleinrock, post free classified advertisements and even de-
2008). This had massive implications. With more velop their own applications - graffiti and Scrabble
broadband, gigantic storage capacities, wireless are particularly popular (Phillips, 2007). On July
access, and advanced visual displays the technol- 22, 2010, the 500 millionth signed account on the
ogy facilitated peer-to-peer file sharing networks, largest social network (22 percent of all Netus-
photo and video generation and sharing, and the ers). Facebook users spend more than 500 billion
construction of social networking mechanisms minutes a month on the site, share more than 25
where people can report and upload any data they billion pieces of content each month (including
may wish to share. news stories, blog posts and photos), and each
of them, on average, creates 70 pieces of content
a month (Rosen, 2010; Arthur & Kiss, 2010).68
SOCIAL NETWORKING Three years after the founding of Facebook,
in 2007, Microsoft made $15bn bid to buy the
The study of Internet social networking is of much company but Zuckerberg declined (Lowensohn,
need in the field of technoethics. Most people use 2010). He did not want to lose control over his
social networks to socialize, exchange information creation. In 2010, Facebook is estimated to worth
and ideas; some, however, abuse social networks to $52.1 billion.69

31
 Internet History

In 2005, there were 1,018 million Netusers.70 The ingenuity of the Internet as it was developed
That year, three former employees of Paypal, Chad in the 1960s by the ARPA scientists lies in the
Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim created a packet switching technology. Until ARPANET
video file sharing website called “YouTube.” The was built, most communications experts claimed
official debut was December 15, 2005. On October that packet switching would never work (Roberts,
9, 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion 1999).75 In 1965, when the first network experi-
(Lidsky, 2010). ment took place, and for the first time packets
The same year, in 2006, the free social net- were used to communicate between computers,
working site Twitter was started by Jack Dorsey. the scientists did not imagine the multiple usages
Essentially, Twitter combines Short Code Mes- of this technology on society. Kleinrock, the in-
saging, SMS with a way to create social groups. ventor of packet switching, explicitly wrote that
One can send information to one’s followers and he did not foresee the powerful community side
receive information from individuals or organiza- of the Internet and its impact on every aspect of
tions one has chosen to follow (Malik, 2009).71 society (Kleinrock, 2008). The Net diffusiveness
There are more than 100 million registered Twitter and its focus on flexibility, decentralization and
users (Rosen, 2010). collaboration brought about the Internet as we
The number of Netusers continued to grow know it today. In the initial stages, the Internet
from 1,319 million in 2007, to 1,574 million in was promoted and funded, but not designed, by
2008, to 1,802 million in 2009, to 1,971 million the U.S. government. Allowing the original re-
in September 2010.72 The most recent figure ac- search and education network to evolve freely and
counts for some 29% of the world population. As openly without any restrictions, selecting TCP/IP
of December 2010, the Indexed Web contains at for the NSFnet and other backbone networks, and
least 2.69 billion pages.73 Table 1 shows the world subsequently privatizing the NSFNET backbone,
Internet usage statistics and population statistics. were the most critical decisions for the Internet’s
evolution.
The Internet’s design was unprecedented be-
CONCLUSION cause it was conceived as a decentralized, open and
neutral network of networks. The open architecture
The Internet and its architecture have grown in of the Internet allows free access to protocols
evolutionary fashion from modest beginnings, from anywhere in the world and is capable to
rather than from a Grand Plan (Carpenter, 1996). accept almost any kind of computer or network

Table 1. Internet usage statistics74 world internet users and population stats

Population Internet Users Penetration

World Regions
(2010) Latest Data (% Population)
Africa 1,013,779,050 110,931,700 10.9%
Asia 3,834,792,852 825,094,396 21.5%
Europe 813,319,511 475,069,448 58.4%
Middle East 212,336,924 63,240,946 29.8%
North America 344,124,450 266,224,500 77.4%
Latin America/Caribbean 592,556,972 204,689,836 34.5%
Oceania / Australia 34,700,201 21,263,990 61.3%
WORLD TOTAL 6,845,609,960 1,966,514,816 28.7%

32
Internet History

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Yahoo. (n. d.). Birth of the Internet – timeline. 10

Kleinrock (1961), http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/
Retrieved from http://smithsonian.yahoo.com/ LK/Bib/REPORT/PhD/; Kleinrock (1973);
timeline.html Kleinrock (January-February 2002: 125-
131). See also Leonard Kleinrock’s Personal
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History/Biography, at http://www.lk.cs.ucla.
guide. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
edu/LK/Inet/birth.html
11
Donald W. Davies CBE, FRS, http://www.
thocp.net/biographies/davies_donald.htm.
ENDNOTES 12
In 1949, two MIT professors, Richard
1
During its lifetime, this agency has used Bolt and Leo Beranek, established a small
two acronyms, ARPA and DAPRA, Defense acoustics consulting firm, and soon added a
Advanced Research Projects Agency. former student of Bolt’s, Robert Newman.
2
“ARPA (DARPA),” Velocity Guide, http:// http://www.bbn.com/about/timeline/
www.velocityguide.com/Internet-history/
13
Jonathan Strickland, “How ARPANET
arpa-darpa.html works,” at http://www.howstuffworks.com/
3
See also “DARPA / ARPA -- Defense / arpanet.htm/printable; Beckett (2000: 15).
Advanced Research Project Agency,” liv-
14
See also Gillies and Cailliau (2000).
ingInternet.com, http://www.livingInternet.
15
Steve Crocker from UCLA played a key role
com/i/ii_darpa.htm; “Internet Pioneers,” in establishing the request for comments in
ibiblio.org, http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/ 1969. See http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1
4
Leiner, Cerf, Clark et al., “A Brief History
16
See also Salus (1995).
of the Internet,” The Internet Society, http://
17
Leonard Kleinrock, personal communication
www.isoc.org/Internet/history/brief.shtml (July 19, 2010).
5
Leonard Kleinrock, personal communication
18
See also Danny Cohen, Remembering
(July 19, 2010). Jonathan B. Postel, http://www.postel.org/
6
David D. Clark, personal communication remembrances/cohen-story.html
(July 19, 2010). See also Kleinrock (August
19
“‘God of the Internet’ is dead” (October 19,
2010: 26-36). 1998).
7
Timeline, http://www.greatachievements.
20
UNIX Introduction, http://www.ee.surrey.
org/Default.aspx?id=2984; “J.C.R. Lick- ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unixintro.html
lider,” Velocity Guide, http://www.veloci-
21
‘Host’ means computer that is connected to
tyguide.com/Internet-history/jcr-licklider. the network.
html
22
Recap the Internet history, at http://www.
8
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/ broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/recap-the-
doi/10.1109/AFIPS.1962.24 history-of-Internet/
9
Baran, “On Distributed Communications
23
The idea was originally introduced by Kahn
Series,” RAND, at http://www.rand.org/ in 1972 as part of the packet radio program.
about/history/baran.list.html; Paul Baran and
24
See also White (2006: 13) and generally
the Origins of the Internet, http://www.rand. Abbate (2000).
org/about/history/baran.html; Slevin (2000:
25
http://www.bbn.com/about/timeline/;
29–30). See also http://www.rand.org/pubs/ pioneers of the net, http://www.chick.net/
authors/b/baran_paul.html wizards/pioneers.html. The first head of
the state to send an email message, in 1976,
was the Queen of England, Elizabeth II. See

37
 Internet History

Recap the Internet history, at http://www. of Internet History,” http://www.netvalley.

broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/recap-the- com/intvalnext.html.
history-of-Internet/ 43
See also Recap the Internet history, at
26
See also Timeline, http://www.greatachieve- http://www.broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-
ments.org/Default.aspx?id=2984 isp/recap-the-history-of-Internet/; Robert
27
What is Usenet? - User Network, http:// H’obbes’ Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet Timeline
www.usenet.com/usenet.html 10, at http://www.zakon.org/robert/Internet/
28
About JANET, http://www.ja.net/company/ timeline/
about.html 44
For deliberation on anonymity, see Levmore
29
See also Recap the Internet history, at http:// (2010: 50-67).
www.broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/ 45
Recap the Internet history, at http://www.
recap-the-history-of-Internet/. broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/recap-the-
30
Timeline, http://www.greatachievements. history-of-Internet/
org/Default.aspx?id=2984 46
Birth of the Internet – Timeline, http://
31
CPSR History, http://cpsr.org/about/history/ smithsonian.yahoo.com/timeline.html
32
Birth of the Internet – Timeline, http:// 47
Robert H’obbes’ Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet
smithsonian.yahoo.com/timeline.html Timeline 10, at http://www.zakon.org/robert/
33
A network backbone includes the long- Internet/timeline/
distance lines and supporting technology 48
Internet Growth, http://www.internetworld-
that transports large amounts of data between stats.com/emarketing.htm
major network nodes. 49
The History of Yahoo! - How It All Started...,
34
Recap the Internet history, at http://www. http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.
broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/recap-the- html
history-of-Internet/ 50
Mosaic Communications Corporation, Who
35
Robert H’obbes’ Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet Are We, http://home.mcom.com/MCOM/
Timeline 10, at http://www.zakon.org/rob- mcom_docs/backgrounder_docs/mission.
ert/Internet/timeline/ html; Recap the Internet history, at http://
36
Timeline, http://www.greatachievements. www.broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/
org/Default.aspx?id=2984 recap-the-history-of-Internet/; Robert
37
Robert H’obbes’ Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet H’obbes’ Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet Timeline
Timeline 10, at http://www.zakon.org/robert/ 10, at http://www.zakon.org/robert/Internet/
Internet/timeline/ timeline/
38
Ibid., at http://www.zakon.org/robert/Inter- 51
Internet Growth, http://www.internetworld-
net/timeline/ stats.com/emarketing.htm
39
See also Clark, Field and Richards (January 52
Robert H’obbes’ Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet
2010). Timeline 10, at http://www.zakon.org/robert/
40
Who’s Who at the World Wide Web Con- Internet/timeline/
sortium..., at http://www.w3.org/People/ 53
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http://
all#timbl; Sir Tim Berners-Lee, http://www. www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing.
londonspeakerbureau.co.uk/sir_tim_bern- htm
ers_lee.aspx 54
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http://
41
See also Hauben and Hauben (1997). www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing.
42
See also Gregory R. Gromov, “The Roads htm
and Crossroads

38
Internet History

55
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http:// 67
http://www.answers.com/topic/myspace
www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing. 68
For further discussion, see Kirkpatrick
htm (2010).
56
Internet Growth: Raw Data, http://www. 69
“Facebook is worth $52 billion, and that’s
internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm not a good thing,” MediaFile (December
57
See also Griffiths, “Search Engines,” http:// 13, 2010).
www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap4. 70
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http://
htm www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing.
58
Timeline, http://www.greatachievements. htm
org/Default.aspx?id=2984 71
See also “Jack Dorsey and Eric Enge talk
59
Recap the Internet history, at http://www. about Twitter,” StoneTemple (October 15,
broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/recap-the- 2007).
history-of-Internet/; Robert H’obbes’ Zakon, 72
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http://
Hobbes’ Internet Timeline 10, at http://www. www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing.
zakon.org/robert/Internet/timeline/ htm
60
About ICANN, http://www.icann.org/en/ 73
The size of the World Wide Web, http://
about/. In June 1999, at its Oslo meeting, www.worldwidewebsize.com/
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 74
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.
signed an agreement with ICANN on the htm (April 2, 2011).
tasks that IANA would perform for the IETF. 75
Roberts wrote: “Packet switching was new
61
Recap the Internet history, at http://www. and radical in the 1960’s. In order to plan
broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/recap-the- to spend millions of dollars and stake my
history-of-Internet/; reputation, I needed to understand that it
62
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http:// would work. Without Kleinrock’s work
www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing. of Networks and Queuing Theory, I could
htm never have taken such a radical step. All the
63
INTERNET GROWTH STATISTICS, http:// communications community argued that it
www.Internetworldstats.com/emarketing. couldn’t work. This book was critical to my
htm; Recap the Internet history, at http:// standing up to them and betting that it would
www.broadbandsuppliers.co.uk/uk-isp/ work.” Quoted in Gillies and Cailliau (2000:
recap-the-history-of-Internet/ 26).
64
Council of Europe – Convention on Cyber- 76
Leiner, Cerf, Clark et al., “A Brief History
crime - http://cis-sacp.government.bg/sacp/ of the Internet,” The Internet Society, http://
CIS/content_en/law/item06.htm. www.isoc.org/Internet/history/brief.shtml
65
“Wikipedia,” in Wikipedia, http:// 77
Internet History, http://www.greatachieve-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ments.org/?id=3747
66
http://www.myspace.com/index.
cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms; McFadden
and Fulginiti (March 24, 2008).

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Technoethics, Volume 2, Issue 2, edited by Rocci Luppicini,
pp. 46-65, copyright 2011 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

39