yone would actually use it. Large OSI networks were never built. The Acceptable Use Policy So by the late 1980s, there were all these corporate networks supporting TCP/IP, a protocol suite that was designed for internetworking. They were all dressed up with no place to go. Some companies and many universities had access to the Internet, of course. Starting in 1987 and with the help of then-Sen. Al Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) [7], the National Science Foundation took over the fund- ing of an Internet backbone for universities and research, the NSFnet. The ARPAnet itself was retired, whereas the Department of Defense maintained its own networks. NSFnet in turn had several regional "mid-level" networks tied together. Among them were New York's NYSERNET, New England's NEARNET, Southern California's CERFNET, and SURANET, collectively owned by several dozen Southern universities. Taxpayer-funded networks were for government-approved applications. They had an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Commercial use was not permitted. A company could build its own TCP/IP network, and might even interconnect it to another company's, though it was not common. But if companies were The Internet Boom and the Limits to Growth lucky enough to get an attachment to the NSFnet, or to another network, such as CSnet, that had NSFnet connectivity, they certainly could not use it for purely commercial purposes. The concept of e-commerce was utterly anathema, and spamming was unheard of-it would have meant immediate disconnection from the network, if not worse. Indeed, there was a well-known story about a DEC salesman who e-mailed product announcements on the ARPAnet and was greeted with a reaction somewhat like a pork barbecue at a mosque. The spam-free private-club nature of the Internet in those days was cer- tainly pleasant, compared with today's cesspit of spam, worms, spyware, and script kiddies. But it left a large unsated demand. Internetworking was very attractive. But who would run the network? The Internet already existed. It had grown to have t