ABSTRACT
The scale and speed at which the interconnected forms of electronic communication known variously as the Net, the Internet, the World Wide Web or cyberspace have entered ordinary life in almost all its aspects is very striking. But, despite its popularity and the rate at which its use has spread, it is still very new, too new in fact to allow much in the way of retrospective reflection on its nature and impact. Even so, its importance can hardly be denied and consequently the impulse to try to think about what it is and what it may mean for culture, law and politics is very great. Anyone who undertakes to write about it in a reflective vein, however, must accept that both the technology and its use are sure to alter considerably even while such reflection is taking place. The result is that writing about the Internet (the term I shall generally use), even if it is neither merely descriptive nor technical, faces the risk of being out of date even before it reaches the bookshops. A book such as this, then, is a chancy undertaking.
