From the mid 1990s when Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web and the Internet grew dramatically, it has progressively dominated our lives. The vast volume of information that is now available to us and the ease at which our ideas and documents can be shared, has transformed the way in which we find material and communicate. It has also had a huge impact on business, particularly retail. However, these huge changes inevitably bring with them some negative consequences, particularly those to do with illegal file sharing and risks to privacy.
The Internet is capable of many things but undoubtedly its main purpose is to provide the world with unlimited information. Rather than look something up in a book, today many people just ‘Google’ it, a phrase that was coined because of the dominance of Google as the world’s leading search engine. The vast amount of material on …show more content…
Google and Facebook have been accused many times of breaching privacy laws and have access to all your searches and Facebook messages. Google is the one most under threat. Both the European Commission and America’s Federal Trade Commission have been investigating allegations that it has unfairly manipulated its search results to favour its own services. The company also stands accused of several other transgressions, including using patents to prevent competition in the smartphone market. It is not only the average Facebook user that has been affected, Governments have also experienced difficulties surrounding privacy on the Internet. The website WikiLeaks has been in the news in recent years as it has leaked confidential government information to newspapers and has posted the information onto their site. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has faced many