The Internet is a global network that connects other computer networks, together with software and protocols for controlling the movement of data. The Internet, often referred to as 'the Net', was initiated in 1969 by a group of universities and private research groups funded by the US Department of Defense. It now covers almost every country in the world. Its organization is informal and deliberately nonpolitical its controllers tend to concentrate on technical aspects rather than on administrative control. The Internet offers users a number of basic services including data transfer, electronic mail, and the ability to access information in remote databases. A notable feature is the existence of user groups, which allow people to exchange information and debate specific subjects of interest. In addition, there are a number of high-level services. For example, MBONE allows the transmission of messages to more than one destination. It is used in videoconferencing. The World Wide Web, known as 'the Web', is another high level Internet service, developed in the 1990s in Geneva. It is a service for distributing multimedia information, including graphics, pictures, sounds, and video as well as text. A feature of the World Wide Web is that it allows links to other related documents elsewhere on the Internet. Documents for publication on the Web are presented in a form. known as HTML (hypertext mark up language). This allows a specification of the page layout and typography as it will appear on the screen. It also allows the inclusion of active links to other documents. Generally, these appear on the screen display as highlighted text or as additional icons. Typically, the user can use a mouse to 'click' on one of these points to load and view a related document. Many commercial and public organizations now have their own Web site (specified by an address code) and publish a 'home page', giving information about the organization. Up to the mid-1990s, the major users of the Internet were academic and research or ganizations. This has begun to change rapidly with individual home users linking in through commercial access providers and with a growing interest by companies in using the Internet for publicity, sales, and as a medium for electronic publishing. At the same time, there are problems with the flow of information across national borders, bringing in debates about copyright protection, data protection, the publication of pornography, and ultimately political control and censorship. From the. first paragraph, we learn that the Internet ______.