COM125 Assignment 2: In the Beginning

Found in an article by Karen Coyle pertaining to privacy rights, prior to the year 1994, commercial activity of the internet was not allowed; this means prior to the year 1994, the internet was a basic tool used solely for the exchange of technical information between users. Websites were unable to advertise on their sites in anyway to users to in the network. Even when this changed after 1994 under more privately run networks, like Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, most sites were still strongly limited as to what material they could and could not display to users on their sites.
According to Karen Coyle, since that time, Internet software has been modified to provide more information about the interaction, techniques have been developed to deliver information about "customers" to web sites. What this allows for is the sites are able to see how the customers are using their sites. Information is sent back to the sites administrators and this way the site can decide what types of information, other than the information being searched by the user, what material can be sent to the individual user, like advertisements and other non-technical information. The sites can also see what sites the user had previously visited to their own and if a search engine was used, that it linked the site properly from the initial search engine.
Prior to 1994, other than exchanging technical information, usage of the internet in alternative ways was considered a privacy risk; unlike now Facebook and Myspace although still have may have some security risks involved, are two of the most frequently used sites of the World Wide Web and are used for no other reason than to market and advertise ourselves to others. In attempts to lower security risks and privacy issues, the creation of "cookies" was introduced. A cookie is a small text file that the web site writes to your hard drive (according to Wikipedia's definition), assigning a unique ID written to the cookie file and each time you visit the site it tells the site that you've returned.
Obviously at this point, many things have changed with internet use and availability of information; ways of using the internet and we are able to do or find information on just about anything conceivable quickly, saving users time in our high-speed life styles. However, the abilities and capabilities of internet usage may not be the same if it had never been boundaries to venture beyond.