What is the History of E-Commerce?

1992 saw the release of Tim Berner-Lee’s World Wide Web. It was with the World Wide Web that the world really began to see the development of E-Commerce as we know it today. By 1994 corporations like Pizza Hut began to take orders for pizza over their website, showing that the World Wide Web was truly beginning to take hold as a commercially viable endeavor.

            It was also in this year that the first commercially successful web browser, Mosiac, became available. Marc Andreessen spearheaded its creation which allowed for point-and-click access to the World Wide Web. Mosaic was adapted by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark into the downloadable Netscape browser.

The software was downloadable over the World Wide Web, which made the simple touse browser available to customers everywhere for free. With easy navigation of the World Wide Web and the number of personal computers in use increasing daily, the E-Commerce Boom was well on its way. Over the next couple of years commercial entities began to realize the importance of having their presence on the Web. On-Tutorial Project – WIPO Worldwide Academy Overview of E-Commerce In 1997 DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service was rolled out in California.

This service allowed customers to connect to the internet at speeds fifty times faster than the typical modem dial up speed of 28.8 kilobits per second. It is this continual connection to the Internet, which increases use and drives greater commerce. 1998 saw E-Commerce take off, as companies were selling their services and goods over the Web and accessing clients that they never had access to before the Web. 1998 also saw the privatization of an important aspect of the Web. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was formed in October of 1998. ICANN is a nonprofit, private-sector corporation formed by a broad coalition of the Internet’s business, technical, academic, and user communities.

ICANN has been recognized by the U.S. and other governments as the global consensus entity to coordinate the technical management of the Internet’s domain name system, the allocation of IP address space, the assignment of protocol parameters, and the management of the root server system. In 1999 Napster and its creator, Sean Flemming, came into the scene. Napster allowed music files to be transferred over the Web by converting them into MP3 files. This software turned the recording industry on its head and copyright owners everywhere were concerned with the possible ramifications that Pier-to-Pier software may have.