Commentary: Legal Currents: The Internet Revolution -- Part 1

Over the next month, I plan to discuss the technologies and thehistorical context that led to the mass adoption of cloud computing.This week, our exploration begins in 1995.

"The Internet has been the most fundamental change during mylifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said,'It's the biggest thing since Gutenberg,' and then someone else said'No, it's the biggest thing since the invention of writing.'"

-- Rupert Murdoch (2005)

On Feb. 27, 1995, Newsweek magazine published an article writtenby Clifford Stoll entitled "The Internet? Bah! Hype Alert: Whycyberspace isn't, and will never be, nirvana" (www.newsweek.com/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html). In the article, Stoll, anastronomer and well-known author of the book "Silicon Snake Oil --Second Thoughts on the Information Highway," infamously predictedthat many of the things made possible by the Internet that we nowtake for granted would never become a reality.

In the article -- which has been repeatedly passed around theInternet and mocked incessantly -- Stoll proclaims that "Internethucksters," "computer pundits" and "visionaries" are devoid of "allcommon sense." Stoll goes on to decry their vision of the future,calling it "baloney." He mocks their claims that the Internet willmake possible a world in which, among other things, peopletelecommute, purchase and read books online, book airline ticketsand restaurant reservations via the Internet, interact in virtualworlds and engage in online commerce.

Stoll decries the hype and lambastes those who claim that theInternet will drastically change the world in which we live:

"Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactivelibraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic townmeetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shiftfrom offices and malls to networks and modems. ... Baloney. Do ourcomputer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no onlinedatabase will replace your daily newspaper ... Nicholas Negroponte,director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy booksand newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure. ... Thenthere's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping --just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline ticketsover the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate salescontracts. ... Even if there were a trustworthy way to send moneyover the Internet -- which there isn't -- the network is missing amost essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople. ..."

As we now know, from our comfortable vantage point 16 yearslater, Stoll couldn't have been more wrong. The vast majority of thepredictions that he scoffed at have now come true. In little morethan a decade, the Internet has literally transformed our lives,from how we conduct business to the ways in which we interact andconnect with family and friends.

The Internet has made it possible for us to shop online forvirtually anything we can imagine. Workers telecommute. We use VoiceOver Internet Protocol (VOIP) to make free international phone callsand conference calls. We hold online video meetings and attendonline classes.

The Internet has become a repository for all types ofinformation. Indeed, for many, the Internet is our primary source ofinformation, from news, current events, encyclopedic knowledge andscholarly articles. Through the Internet, we connect to our socialnetworks, communicate with our friends and family, and network withbusiness associates. Virtual communities are now a reality, as aremultimedia classrooms and interactive libraries.

The Internet is entrenched in our day-to-day activities and is anintegral part of our lives on so many levels. The bottom line: Stollwas an outspoken -- and very mistaken -- critic of those who daredto dream of the possibilities of the Internet. He was the originalInternet curmudgeon and bastion of old school ways, just like manylawyers today.

Like Stoll, rather than accepting and embracing change, a goodportion of the legal profession remains firmly entrenched in theways of decades past, staunchly resisting the inevitable changesushered in by technology. Stoll, however, unlike lawyers of the 21stcentury, had an arguable excuse for his lack of vision: thetechnology hadn't yet evolved.

Next week, in part 2 of this series, we'll learn about how thetechnology changed, making the Internet revolution, and life as wenow know it, possible.

Nicole Black is of counsel to Fiandach & Fiandach in Rochester.She co-authors the ABA book Social Media for Lawyers: the NextFrontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York, a West-Thomsontreatise, She is the founder of lawtechTalk.com and speaks regularlyat conferences regarding the intersection of law and technology. Shepublishes four legal blogs and can be reached atnblack@nicoleblackesq.com.