Do you remember when the Internet was young? When it was pure and crisp, like freshly fallen snow? Uncorrupted by spam and pornography from obnoxious entrepreneurs? I do. I first started using the Internet on my mother's old black and white Toshiba laptop, which was running Windows 3.1. The year was 1994, before the dot coms, before eBay and before instant messaging. This was back when the Internet was brand-spanking new. Fresh out of the box like a holiday present just waiting to be put to good use. There was an entirely different mentality during those early days of the Internet. Browsing the Web was more like being a member of a close-knit community than being a fan in a crowded stadium. One would find cute, little homepages where people posted poetry or pictures of their dog for the whole world to see. The pioneers of the Internet were more interested in celebrating their lifestyle than obtaining your credit card number.

The opportunity of nearly unlimited free exchange of ideas seems refreshing until you realize that the decentralization and lack of regulation on the Internet allow any idiot to have as much of a voice as an enlightened individual. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hatemongers are just as free to express their ideas as anyone else. It turns out that the deregulation of the Internet is both the best and worst thing about it. Anyone, anywhere can post anything.

Slowly but surely, the Internet became corrupted. Banners began appearing on every web site and soon became standard for all pages. Onslaughts of pop-up windows and other scrolling advertisements obscured your screen and simply refused to go away. Spammers competed for space in your inbox. Spyware was born. Malicious programmers spread viruses to unsuspecting 'netizens.' In May 2000, the Love Bug virus forced many corporations to shut down for a short period of time, causing them and consumers to lose millions upon millions of dollars.

The Internet was untainted eight years ago. Back then you could type "White House" into a search engine and expect to find something about presidents and not get a porn site instead. Yes, somewhere, something went wrong. Parents must now worry about their daughters chatting and meeting with cyber-stalkers, and keeping little Johnny and his friends from downloading smut.

But, to be fair, the Internet's development (and embracing of capitalism) hasn't been all bad. We now have access to a wealth of services that make life easier and more interesting. We can now play games, buy books on Amazon.com, trade old Nintendo games on eBay, do research on Sparknotes.com and send text messages to cell phones. The Internet promised to connect millions of people from all over the world and provide services and information, and it does. But, we have to take the good with the bad.

In the long run, I believe that regulation will be needed, and is, in fact, inevitable. We've seen it coming for a long time now, starting with the demise of Napster and progressing in small steps. More and more court cases have erupted, taxes on commerce have been imposed and laws such as the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) have been enacted. And, in the era of the MP3, we know that it won't be long until there's even more regulation. Besides, at some point, someone's going to try to create a sellyourkids.com and we'll certainly want regulation for that.

As for the advertisements, well, the Internet couldn't stay completely free forever. Someone has to finance these free web pages, and since most people aren't willing to pay that much for access to information, we're stuck with the ads. Of course, there are browsers and software available to filter out these advertisements for you -- but, spyware company Gator has already come under attack for replacing other webpage's banner advertisements with its own, suggesting that the battle against pop-ups is far from over.

I long for the purity of the Internet, but we've come too far to ever go back. The advertisements and viruses are here to stay, so we might as well accept them as a fact of life, just like commercials on television and the common cold. And, in the years to come, the government will have to assume a greater role in regulating content, for better or worse. In the meantime, I'll continue to use the Internet, ever nostalgic for the days when it innocently embodied more utopian ideals.

-- Jon Melenson '04 submits a column to the Justice