The history of online privacy begins, with the creation of the Internet itself.* In the late 1960's, after the publication of a few papers describing a mechanism for networked computer communication, DARPA began a research initiative to create a large network of computers - a network to be called the ARPANET. Many research labs applied for the DARPA grant to develop the network, but it was researchers at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge MA, that eventually won the bid. The ARPANET was originally constructed between computers in California: the first node at was placed at UCLA followed shortly thereafter by a second node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Over time the ARPANET grew with the addition of many nodes around the country primarily at research laboratories and universities. With the advent of new protocols and the addition of many new nodes, the transition from the original ARPANET to a more robust, commercial system was required and the Internet was born. It was on October 24th, 1995, however, that the Federal Networking Council defined the term "Internet."

When Tim Berners-Lee proposed and began development of the World Wide Web, a new global community was born. With the advent of the first graphical web browser, Mosaic**, created at CERN in 1991, information suddenly became available to the average, non-technical user. In March of 1994, Marc Andreesen (the original Mosaic developer) went on to found Netscape, a company devoted to browser development with Jim Clark.

Quickly, the potential of the World Wide Web as an online marketplace was realized. Although as early as the 1980's "dozens of vendors were incorporating [networking technology] into their products"[Leiner], the online marketplace that we think of today began with the inception of the World Wide Web and the graphical web browser. Two of the most notable online vendors, eBay and Amazon, were founded in 1995. Today eBay is used by millions of individuals every day and functions as the world's largest auction*** and Amazon is an extremely successful corporation with a current market capitization of $14.62 billion [Yahoo Finance]. Shortly after the inception of the online marketplace, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been involved in "addressing online privacy issues" [FTC Privacy Report to Congress]. In the FTC report cited previously, the following figures can be found in the history section:

According to a Computerworld report from 2005 (reprinted from REUTERS), in 2004 Internet advertising revenue reached $9.6 billion [Gershberg]. This is a huge increase over the 1996 figure presented in the FTC article of $301 million. Although advertising figures are not exactly representative of figures for the growth in the online marketplace they do shed light on the magnitude of the industry that exists online. More specific figures show that in the first quarter of 2000 alone, consumers spent an estimated $7 billion online [Pastore].

As users are suddenly capable of purchasing products and services online, however, privacy becomes an increasing concern. Clearly to utilize services without leaving the comfort of ones own home, a user must supply a form of payment, offer their name and contact information, and depending upon the product or service provide other personal identifying information. According to the 1998 Business Week / Harris Study, privacy was the number one concern of users while online [Business Week/Harris].

Historically legislation has done some to protect the privacy of Internet users, however much of the protection that users see for their personal information is granted by corporate privacy policies to whom end users provide information.****

* Much of the information for the Basic history of the Internet has been taken from Leiner's article. For the entire article, see the reference listed in the History subsection of the references page.

** See the Gribble article in the history section of the references page.

*** See the history of eBay from the Wikipedia article listed on the references page.

**** We will provide a more in-depth look at legislation in the section describing the present state of privacy online.