The effects of the commercialization of the Internet are controversial, with benefits that simplify daily life and repercussions that challenge personal freedoms, including surveillance capitalism and data tracking.
[5] UUNET was the first company to sell commercial TCP/IP, first to government-approved corporations in November 1988[6] and then actively to the public starting in January 1990, albeit only to the NSFNET backbone with their approval.
Additionally, the legality of Internet business was still somewhat grey, though increasingly tolerated, which prevented large amounts of investment money from entering the medium.
This changed with the NSFNET selling its assets in 1995 and the December 1994 release of Netscape Navigator, whose HTTPS secure protocol permitted relatively safe transfer of credit and debit card information.
This along with the advent of user-friendly Web browsers and ISP portals such as America Online, along with the disbanding of the NSFNET in 1995 is what led to the corporate Internet and the dot com boom of the late 1990s.
1995 was a significant year for the concept of commercial Internet service provider (ISP) markets due to two substantial events that took place: the Netscape initial public offering (IPO) and emergence of AT&T World Net.
The entry of AT&T on the other hand created an Internet access service that spread nationwide and gained one million customers due to its publicity and marketing.
[15] Two years later, in 1997, Six Degrees, which is widely considered to be the first social networking website, included many of the popular features on Classmates, such as creating profiles and adding friends and school affiliations.
[15] Before the internet, sharing files was through dial-up BBS systems, floppy disks, tapes, magazines, CD's and other forms.
With encouraged user integration, there were now enhanced retail opportunities, increased marketing visibility, and the ability for business to interact with customers.
[27] The earliest widespread spam email was sent on April 13, 1994, by Martha Siegel and Laurence Canter, who were among the first to post on Usenet in order to advertise their law firm, claiming they would in turn be able to help people enter the green-card lottery.
In April 2004, Facebook's ad sales effort, which was led by co-founder Eduardo Saverin, was an example of an early commercial use of social media.
Facebook enabled companies to create targeted advertisements based on a variety of consumer-related factors such as college/university, degree type, sexual orientation, age, personal interests, and political views.
This method of using Twitter to keep their brands up to date with the trends creates more opportunities for companies to interact with users and potential buyers in ways that are relevant to them.
The world's first commercial 1G mobile network, launched in 1979 by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), was made available to the citizens of Tokyo, Japan.
[40] When 3G infrastructure launched more broadly in 2002, its networks continued to develop in not only quality and speed but also range and volume, setting the early commercial foundations of the mobile Internet.
The Apple-developed and maintained app store platform utilizes the 3G network, providing access to mobile applications on the company's operations systems.
Jointly, the introduction of the App Store marketplace and the maturation of the iPhone established the idea that an electronic device need not be rigid functionally.
[44] The network observes the start of today's standard services, offering faster data access on mobile phones.
With the development and better access to the Internet, e-commerce allowed larger and smaller businesses to grow at a faster rate and it cuts down expenses when it comes down to retail shopping.
Early forms of e-commerce date to Michael Aldrich, when in 1979 he connected a TV to a transaction processing computer using a telephone, calling it teleshopping.
Amazon.com, created by Jeff Bezos, started out as a bookstore and comparing it to today, Amazon.com offers different products for users when using their website.
In some cases, groceries and household supplies would also be able to delivered through Amazon.com making it easy for shoppers due to the fact they wouldn't have to leave their homes.
The creation of applications like Shopify allows users to develop their own website to sell their product and build a reputable brand with the help of tutorials and instructions.
The developments of PayPal and other payment methods gave customers an easier and faster way of paying by signing into their accounts.
These ads are unique due to their “tap and try” feature, with companies virtually demonstrating their product or service to the prospective buyers with Facebook as the middleman.
With consumers using the internet as often as they do, high amounts of data allow brands to micro-segment their target audiences; this is a form of digital marketing yet to be seen.
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former intelligence contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii, leaked classified documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.
These documents revealed information including the fact that the NSA collected millions of Verizon customers' telephone records and used a program called Prism to access data from Internet companies such as Google and Facebook.
So today, we’re going to start talking about what this could look like as a product, what it means to have your social experience be more intimate, and how we need to change the way we run this company in order to build this.”[50] In 2018, the Cambridge Analytica group brought to attention what Facebook was doing with their user's information.