00 million internet users in December 2000. In
summer 2000, the number of non-English-speaking users reached
50%, and went on to increase then. According to Netcraft, the
number of websites went from one million (April 1997) to 10
million (February 2000), 20 million (September 2000), 30
million (July 2001), 40 million (April 2003), 50 million (May
2004), 60 million (March 2005), 70 million (August 2005), 80
million (April 2006), 90 million (August 2006) and 100 million
(November 2006).

= The internet and the web

When Project Gutenberg began in July 1971, the internet was
just a glimmer. The pre-internet was created in the U.S. in
1969, as a network set up by the Pentagon. The internet took
off in 1974 with the creation of TCP/IP by Vinton Cerf and Bob
Kahn. It expanded as a network linking U.S. governmental
agencies, universities and research centers.

After the invention of the web in 1989-90 by Tim Berners-Lee at
CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research), Geneva,
Switzerland, and the release of the first browser, Mosaic (the
ancestor of Netscape), in November 1993, the internet began
spreading, first in the U.S. because of investments made by the
government, then in North America, and then worldwide. Because
the web was easy to use, linking documents and pages with
hyperlinks, the internet could now be used by anyone, and not
only by computer literate users. There were 100 million
internet users in December 1997, with one million new users per
month, and 300 million internet users in December 2000.

Why did the internet spread in North America first? The U.S.
and Canada were leading the way in computer science and
communication technology, and a connection to the internet -
mainly through a phone line - was much cheaper than in most
countries. In Europe, avid internet users needed to navigate
the web at night - when phone rates by the minute were cheaper
- to cut their expenses. In 1998, some users in France, Italy
and Germany launched a movement to boycott the internet one day
per week, for internet providers and phone companies to set up
a special monthly rate. This action paid off, and providers
began to offer "internet rates".

Christiane Jadelot, a French engineer at INaLF-Nancy (INaLF:
National Institute for the French Language), wrote in July
1998: "I began to really use the internet in 1994, with a
browser called Mosaic. I found it a very useful way of
improving my knowledge of computers, lingu