What can be inferred from a general survey in cyber space about the history of inventing internet is that many people assume that internet is invented in the United States. But if we wish to be a bit critic, then we should get back and have a look at the history of this modern invention.
According to John Anderson "The answer to the question of 'who invented the internet' is not a single man or company, but instead the involvement of many experts from various fields pooling their knowledge towards a common goal."[1] There is a theory that suggests the launch of Soviet Union's satellite (Sputnik I) in 1957 impulsed the U.S. to accelerate its researches. Then over the time by improvement in transferring data, "technology enabled the creation of a functioning long distance computer network. Larry G. Roberts could be labelled as one of the people who invented the internet because he built its first links: between the University of California and Stanford Research Institute in 1969. Known as ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Networks), the network was gradually expanded to link military, scientific and educational institutions all over the country. It wasn't until 1990 that the internet became available for public usage and stopped being the preserve of the government and research institutions. The development of HTML during this year meant that graphical websites started appearing and the world-wide-web started taking form into how we know it today. "[2]
Since then the usage of internet has grown day by day. Here is a sample of the growing usage of this invention from http://internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm
Also the statistics of number of users during various years, according to same site which I have summarized it:
December, 1995
16 million
0.4 %
December, 2000
361 million
5.8 %
June, 2009
1,669 million
24.7 %
Although population of internet has a lot advantages for people but also it is its disadvantages that concerns the critics. One of this concerns is the source who supervises the internet. What can be inferred from evidences it is again the father of this creation; the U.S., as we hear the news like " *The Obama administration has just released much documentation about itsnew effort to secure cyberspace."[3]
Monopolizing this vast and great industry has worried some people. One of them is the famous blogger Cory Doctorow who has written on 6/18/2009 about his concerns about mistrust against some search engines; "This may come as a surprise, but I have a lot of sympathy with artists' rights groups and even entertainment companies that mistrust giants like Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).
Now, it's not that I hate Amazon or Google, but I do understand that they are fast becoming the intermediary between creators and audiences (and vice-versa), and that this poses a danger to everyone involved in the creative industries.
That danger is that a couple of corporate giants will end up with a buyer's market for creative works, control over the dominant distribution channel, and the ability to dictate the terms on which creative works are made, distributed, appreciated, bought, and sold.
And the danger of that is that these corporate giants might, through malice or negligence, end up screwing up the means by which the world talks to itself, carrying on its cultural discourse -- a discourse that ultimately sets the agendas for law, politics, health, climate, justice, crime, education, child-rearing, and every other important human subject."[4]
[1] http://www.catalogs.com/info/gadgets/who-invented-the-internet.html
[3] http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/06/cyberspace-is-real-declares-president-of-united-states/
[4] http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=178058&
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