Internet

Internet (Net) The global informal network that now links a very substantial fraction of the world's computer networks. The Internet is an extraordinary development that stems from the original ARPANET, which was initiated in North America in 1969. In broad terms the Internet does not offer services to end-users, but serves primarily to interconnect other networks on which end-user services are located. It provides basic services for file transfer, electronic mail, and remote login, and high-level services including the World Wide Web and the MBONE.

The Internet is global, with connections to nearly every country in the world; the qualification “nearly” is present in part because the number of countries connected continues to increase, and in part because the Internet is deliberately nonpolitical and tends to deal with nongovernmental levels within a country. The Internet is informal, with a minimal level of governing bodies and with an emphasis in these bodies on technical rather than on administration or revenue generation. To date (Spring 1995) the major users of the Internet have been the academic and research communities, but it is inevitable that this situation will change rapidly in the next few years with the growth in commercial interest in the exploitation of the Internet. In addition the flow of data across borders is a highly complex legal matter, involving the copyright and data protection legislation of the countries involved.