World Wide Web
The World Wide Web, also known as the WWW and the Web, is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and accessible via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser in 1990 while employed at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The browser was released outside CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and to the general public on the Internet in August 1991.
Privacy-invasive software
In the mid-1990s, the development of the Internet increased rapidly due to the interest from the general public. One important factor behind this accelerating increase was the 1993 release of the first browser, called Mosaic. This marked the birth of the graphically visible part of the Internet known as the World Wide Web (WWW) that was introduced in 1990. Commercial interests became well aware of the potential offered by the WWW in terms of electronic commerce especially because the restrictions on the commercial use of the Internet were removed which opened the space for companies to use the web as a platform to advertise and sell their goods. Thus, shortly after, companies selling goods over the Internet emerged, i.e. pioneers such as book dealer Amazon.com and CD retailer CDNOW.com, which both were founded in 1994.