The origins of the Internet go back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the US Department of Defense in the 1960s to enable time sharing on computers. Arpanet’s leading predecessor network initially served as a pillar for connecting regional academic and military networks in the 1970s. Funding for the National Science Foundation’s network as a new highway in the 1980s and private funding for other trade operations led to global participation in developing new network technologies and the merger of many networks. The interconnection of commercial networks and enterprises in the early 1990s marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet. It sparked a steady exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, commercialization has incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.

Most traditional communication media, including telephony, radio, television, paper mail and newspapers, are changing, redefining or even bypassing the Internet, giving rise to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet TV, online music, digital communications. Newspapers and video streaming websites. Newspapers, books, and other publications adapt to website technologies or transform into blogs, web feeds, and online news aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through instant messaging, Internet forums and social media. Online shopping is growing exponentially for large retailers, small businesses and entrepreneurs as they allow companies to expand their “mainstream” presence to serve a larger market or even sell products and services exclusively over the Internet. Internet stands for International network. It connects people all over the world. Business to business and online financial services are impacting supply chains across all industries.

There is no single centralized control over technology implementation or access and use policies; each composite network sets its policies. Definitions that go beyond the two main namespaces on the Internet, the Internet address space (IP addresses) and the Domain Name System (DNS), are managed by the supporting organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical foundation and standardization of core protocols are the work of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization made up of international, open-ended contributors to contact anyone with their technical expertise. In November 2006, the Internet was included in USA Today’s “Seven New Wonders” list.