ABSTRACT
At the end of 1995, the first year of widespread use of the world wide web, there were about 16 million users of computer communication networks in the world. In early 2001 there were over 400 million; reliable forecasts point to about 1 billion users in 2005, and we could be approaching the 2 billion mark by 2010, even taking into consideration a slowing down of diffusion of the Internet when it enters the world of poverty and technological retardation. The influence of Internet-based networking goes beyond the number of users: it is also the quality of use. Core economic, social, political, and cultural activities throughout the planet are being structured by and around the Internet.
