Internet Capitalization Conventions
Publishers have different conventions regarding the capitalization of "Internet" or "internet", when referring to the Internet/internet, as distinct from generic internets, or internetworks.
Since the widespread deployment of the Internet Protocol Suite in the early 1980s, the Internet standards-setting bodies and technical infrastructure organizations, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Society, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the World Wide Web Consortium, and others, have consistently spelled the name of the world-wide network, the Internet, with an initial capital letter and treated it as a proper noun in the English language. Before the transformation of the ARPANET into the modern Internet, the term internet in its lower case spelling was a common short form of the term internetwork, and this spelling and use may still be found in discussions of networking.
Many publications today disregard the historical development and use the term in its common noun spelling, arguing that it has become a generic medium of communication.
Read more about Internet Capitalization Conventions: Name As Internet Versus Generic Internets, Argument For Common Noun Usage, Usage Examples
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