INTERNATIONAL: Still Wrong - Al Gore Didn't Take the Iniative to Create the Internet

UPDATE 7/30/2012: First go see WeHelpedBuildThat.com. Then go see The Birth of the Internet. Both the government and the private sector had import roles in creating our modern day internet, and that focusing on one entity (i.e., government) to the exclusion or outright disparagement of the other elements (i.e., private enterprise) is simplistic, misleading and wrong. Obama's three points:
1) Government ALONE created the internet
2) Government built the internet to create opportunities for EVERYONE in private enterprise to make money
3) Internet companies are successful because of the government creating the internet for them to use to make money.
These 3 points are simply not true, except maybe the last one. Due to crony capitalism and favoritism, government does indeed pick some companies to succeed, and allows others to fail. One could argue that this condition of favoritism by the government is not desired, but the government is not the one who will be making the argument, I'm sure.

I'll start with my own opinion:

1) Government and private business funding created what we now call the "Internet". In what proportions is the credit meted out? It depends on how you define the question, and is hopelessly mired in a combination of politics and technology. Suffice it to say that government research ALONE did not create the internet.

2) What most people think of when they hear "internet" is really the World Wide Web ("www"). The story of the creation / invention of the WWW is complicated as well, but you can read about that here at Wikipedia and draw your own conclusions. There is no clear and compelling single answer.

President Barach Obama (in his own words on July 17, 2012):

"The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

For some opinion, try reading this article from the Wall Street Journal on July 23, 2012. Who Really Invented the Internet? by L. Gordon Crovitz. Some believe that it's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. What is the truth? If the government didn't invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet's backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks. But some believe that full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox. It was at the Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley in the 1970s that the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks.

Any article about facts in an opinion section is not to be trusted, so I searched for a more detailed and factual article on the Origins of the Internet. This is the article that I liked best. It is a rather lengthy bit of research, seems fairly unbiased, and comes to these conclusions about who were the creators of the internet.

Examining these various events, we come to some important findings.
1) There are a number of valid claims to origins of the Internet. [Note: none had Al Gore's name on them]
2) Although an original date and place might be obtainable for the first networked transmission that could be called an Internet, the result would need by definition to include more than one party or network, and is unlikely to be a satisfactory or useful conclusion.
3) Not only US projects were involved in the beginnings of the Internet.
4) Not only government funded US research programs were involved in the beginnings of the Internet.
5) Not only telcos and the commercial sector were involved in the beginnings of the Internet.
6) Neither Arpanet nor TCP/IP is present in all valid theories.

Educate thyself.