History of the Internet (Essay Sample)

History of the Internet
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Introduction
As of 2020, the global internet usage stood at an estimated 4.5 billion users and with the advent of handheld devices and big internet companies such as Google Facebook, Twitter and YouTube boast of well over 2 billion individual users each on their sites (Poushter,2016). However, during its infancy, the internet was the preserve of mostly government-funded academic or technological research. Its entry into mainstream public use and eventual commercialization was a gradual process from its initial development in the 1960s and 70s and proliferation in the 90s. While the applications of the internet have had an immense impact on global events and spurred immeasurable economic and social growth, its mainstream use has also led to serious concerns over illegal content, privacy, crime, and freedom of speech (Risen, 2014). This essay explores the history of the internet while underscoring any changes that could have been made to prevent or reduce the negative effects of the internet.
History of the Internet
The technology we refer to as the internet which simply defined the network of computer networks based on the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) suite of protocols began its development in the late 1950s and early 60s. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) developed a network that could allow them to communicate and this gave rise to ARPANET in 1966 (Abbate, 2000). Because ARPANET was a unitary network, developers worked out a way to interconnect different networks and this led to the development of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) and their adoption in 1981 (Naughton, 2016).
I think that the Government should have at this early point in time established stricter controls on access to the internet technology and limited access. The extensive proliferation of the applications especially with selected private entities created a closed system that led to the commercialization of the internet. I would ensure governmental control and participate actively in the development of the internet. This would involve the passing of laws and policies that regulated the creation or development of such networks early enough.
The World Wide Web was proposed by CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. He further wrote all associated software such as URL, HTTP, and HTML which allowed people to connect, access, and create links in a single global web of communication (Abbate, 2000). Software development advanced to such an extent that users could hide their identity through programs such as Pretty Good Privacy which heralded the ethical issues that characterize modern internet anonymity (Abbate, 2000). In hindsight, I would ensure that net users had to identify themselves when accessing the internet and using the Web at this point. This would involve the development of specific identity protocols within the internet and a central database to control access.
According to (Naughton, 2016) In 1998 non-profit organization the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers secured funding as a policy regulator of the internet without the ability to control the content, stopping spam or limiting access to the internet sowing the seed for unlimited access and control of content. Realizing this vacuum, cooperate business became aware of the intense commercial potential of the internet and began to invest in it with America Online, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Apple riding this wave and building highly valuable portfolios. Currently, these companies have near-monopoly control on the internet and data on the internet raising concerns on privacy and excess corporate power. Google has for several years maintained a market share of about 87% of internet usage testament to the control it possesses over internet data (Greenstein, 2015).
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According to Greenstein (2015), this eventuality was caused by the unavailability of a neutral party with resources to regulate the internet, at this point I would reconstitute ICANN as a regulatory body with control on access and content to limit copyright infringements and loose content distribution as they are thorns in the flesh of intellectual property protection.
Modern-day internet from around