by Abraham Cooper

About the author: Abraham Cooper is a rabbi and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Holocaust memorial and study center.

Nineteen-ninety-six marked a turning point for the growth and impact of the Internet. Clearly, it has established itself as an important gatekeeper of communications and ideas throughout the world.

Growth of the Internet

Consider that there are already 100,000 connected networks—representing an annual growth rate of 85%—ten million host computers, and thirty million users in 186 countries. The World Wide Web, that area of the Internet which provides the greatest opportunity to market and promote ideas and products, already has 76,000 Web servers representing an incredible 2400% rate of growth between 1995 and 1996.

The main reason for this unprecedented phenomenon is clear. For the first time in the history of...