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The NASDAQ Internet Index is up 46% in April 2014 over the past year, even though it was down 12% in March-April 2014 as investors grew wary over high price rises for stocks in the "cloud," "big data" and "social" fields. Investors turned to old tech stocks such as Microsoft which were seen as value stocks because of lower price and valuations. Gallagher suggests watching the IPO market for signals of where this market is headed. In the 1st quarter 2014 companies raised $10.6 billion in the U.S., the busiest quarter since 2000. 103 companies submitted initial IPO filings in the same quarter. Venture Capital has invested $29.4 billion in 2013, an increase of 7% from 2012, according to MoneyTree Report. Even though the NASDAQ Composite Index is down 5% over the last 30 days, Gallagher points out that the NASDAQ has witnessed 4 drops of about 10% since 2010.

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller issues an indictment of 13 Russians on Feb. 16th, 2018. The indictment was made public by deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, at a press conference. President Trump says the Internet Research Agency in Russia started its activities in 2014 long before he announced his bid for the presidency, and now acknowledges the Russian activities in the U.S. presidential election of 2016.

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Internet penetration is about 30% in India, compared to 50% in China and 87% in the U.S., according to the World Bank. The number of internet users increased from 375 million in Oct. 2015 to 402 million in Dec. 2015, according to Internet and Mobile Asssociation of India. Growth of internet users is increasing with the falling price of smartphones and mobile data usage.

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Google's head of operations in India, Rajan Anandan, cites estimates of 200 million new internet users in India by 2014. An estimated 100 millon Indians were online in 2010. The surge in internet use is expected with the roll out of high speed internet technology and expected sales of low cost smartphones using Android software. Most of the Indian advertising dollars go to print and television advertising. As a result online advertising spending is only about 200 million dollars. One aspect of Indian user behaviour is the preference for the internet as the first source for research when it comes to buying cars or other products. Google has 63 million Indian users for its search service, according to ViziSense, an Indian web metrics firm. Anandan says Indian advertisers could benefit from an Internet first strategy to reach affluent urban consumers.

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The Microsoft Edge browser replaced the Internet Explorer in 2015. Now the Internet Explorer will be removed from most versions of Windows 10.

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Internet IPO's of unprofitable companies in 2013. Investor interest in these companies.

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Internet company valuations and IPO's in mid- 2012 reach the frenzied levels before the the tech bubble burst in 2000-2001.

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Efforts to raise money by Eventbrite, a event ticketing internet startup in the U.S. Eventbrite raised $60 million from T. Rowe Price Group and Tiger Global Management in late stage financing. Private investments in late stage financing have accelerated in 2011-2013. In the 1st quarter of 2013 $2.2 billion was raised in late stage venture capital investments compared to $672 million raised through venture capital backed IPO's, according to figures put together by the National Venture Capital Association from Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Thomson Reuters. For 2012 late stage financing raised $8.6 billion compared to $21.5 billion in IPO's, including the $16 billion for Facebook IPO. Excluding the Facebook IPO, IPO's raised $5.5 billion, much less than the late stage financing. Investors who purchased Facebook Inc. privately just prior to the IPO, face paper losses at the current trading price in April 2013 of $25.73 per share, making investors wary of heavily hyped up IPO's. SurveyMonkey, a web survey company has raised $800 million from private equity and debt investments. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act lets startups remain private longer by allowing startups to have over 500 investors before having to disclose financial statements to the public....

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Swiss voters approve a higher level of surveillance with 65.5%of voters supporting in a referendum in September 2016. This gives the Federal Intelligence Service the power to tap phones, search e-mails and track internet activity to control hacking, spying and terrorist activities. The government of Switzerland supports the measure saying it had to keep up with the higher security measures taken by other western governments. The law giving such powers was already passed in parliament in 2015 but the Green party and Socialist party had put this to a referendum.

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The New York Times agreed to sell the Boston Globe to local owners for $70 million in 2013. In 1993 the New York Times acquired The Boston Globe for $1.1 billion. The value of newspapers has plummeted in recent years as newspapers lost advertising revenue and readership declined. A result of the shift to the internet for access to news and information, especially for the younger generation. The Washington Post was sold to Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com for $250 million, with readership having declined to about 457,000 in 2013. Philadelphia newspapers were sold for $55 millon in 2012, after being acquired for $515 millon in 2006, having lost about 90% of the value in just 6 years. In Oct. 2012 The Tampa Tribune sold for only $9.5 million. Estimates for the newspaper properties of the Tribune Company are about $623 million, according to analysts. This includes The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune.

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A way of gauging the extent of a bubble in the internet IPO's in 2013, says Hulbert, is the first day return on IPO's in the U.S. of 25% in mid-Aug to mid-Nov 2013 compared to 96% in the first quarter of 2000. He cites a study by finance professors Jerry Wurgler of New York University's Stern School of Business and Malcolm Baker of Harvard Business School, which stresses the need to use objective indicators in assessing the current equity markets and not relying on memories alone. Investor caution after two bubbles since 2000, active regulatory oversight of markets, and legal frameworks updated for changes in financial markets have provided additional safety and stability to markets. The study authors cite evidence for the changes in the way investor sentiment values speculative stocks compared to established stocks. The price/book ratio per share or net worth of established stocks is way higher compared to speculative stocks in 2013 compared to 2000. In 2013 established companies in the S&P 1500 index, according to FactSet, had a 49% higher price/book ratio on average than speculative stocks. Wurgler and Baker used dividend paying stocks as "established" stocks compared to non dividend paying stocks as "speculative." Another piece of evidence that companies are also adjusting to sentiment this time is that less money is coming from stock issuance in 2013 of 11% compared to 20% in 2000. Visible evidence of company behaviour is also telling- banks are changing bahaviour after tougher regulatory oversight and settlements in 2013. GE is planning to shrink GE Capital and put it on sale. Investors have sharply cut back allocations to stocks and are returning to modestly higher allocations from much lower levels and memories of 2000 and 2008 are still present....

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Popularity of Chinese apps in India is increasing particularly in smaller cities and replacing the dominance of U.S. apps. They are popular with people getting online for the first time with cheap smartphones and cheap data plans. Content is mostly wacky and has come under criticism in India for the lack of quality content and addictive nature of the material.

Major Chinese internet companies Tencent and AliBaba have yet to find a foothold in India. Social media downloads have increased from 7 million in 2018 to 70 million in 2019 for these Chinese apps, some with wacky names like TikTok.

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Gome's share price fell 21% on March 27, 2012. The company is facing strong competition from online sellers. Its profits declined by 6% in 2011. China is seeing an upsurge for online retailers such as 360Buy.com and Taobao. Gome's internal estimates are for internet sales of home appliances to be 1 in 3 by 2016, up from 1 in 10 in 2010. Gome is in a similiar position as Best Buy in the U.S. which competes with Amazon.com and other online sellers. To compete Gome is promoting its own online shopping operations.

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Internet penetration in India is increasing rapidly. India had 71 million internet users in 2009 by one estimate. Current estimates are of 80-100 million internet users. India's internet penetration as percentage of population of 5% is low compared to China which is at 28.9%, Brazil at 39.2%, and Mexico at 28.3%, according to figures from the International Telecommunication Union. Analysts expect the launch of third generation broadband networks will help increase internet use in India. One study done by investment bank Caris & Co. shows internet use growing to 180-200 million users by 2015. Most of the major internet sites are in news, job-search or match-making. Internet retail is just beginning to grow with online purchases of $1.4 billion in 2010 going up to $5 billion in 2012.

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Many of the companies from the dot com tech bubble of 1999-2000 which were given $1 billion valuations went out of business, including names like Webvan and eToys. The same buble behaviour is evident in 2012 as many companies such as Facebook, Pinterest, Evernote, have $1 billion valuations, similiar to 2000. This is asignal that valuations may have spun out of control. It takes a few deep pocketed investors to raise the valuation of startup internet companies to these untested companies.

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Xiaomi is China's leading brand. It is very different from other companies in China and America. It is tightly controlled by its founder Lei Jun who has built a loyal following for the brand  through fan clubs and creating an enthusiastic following. Because the firm is run by founder Lei Jun it can make quick decisions to enter a market. Lei Jun was a computer science student in Wuhan in 1987 as China opened up to the world.  By 2017- in three years from being zero in the Indian market place in 2014- Xiaomi had become the largest smartphone company in India. The company was launched in 2010. Profit margins are thin about 1% in a very competitive pricing market.  Metrics are based on revenue per user of $9 per user from an installed base of 190 million smartphone users, spending 54 minutes a day using Xiaomi's app, game and other services, or 20% of the phone use time. Revenue per user comes from advertising, and from commissions on the apps and games it sells to its user base. In 2015 Xiaomi had a loss, in 2016 sales dropped, in 2017 new products led to a resurgence in the market with sales increasing 68%. As Xiaomi goes into its IPO, experts say much of the $10 billion from the IPO could go into reinvestment as Xiaomi reinvents itself and moves into other internet business. ...

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The Chinese government allows PC makers in China to postpone installation of Green Dam filtering software on new computers. This was in response to the growing criticism of this requirement for pre-installation of filtering software on all new PC's sold in China. See the accompanying graph that shows the growth of internet users in China from data of the China Internet Network Information Center. It shows internaet users going from about 25 million users in 2000 to 300 million in 2008, showing how quickly internet technologies are penetrating and changing lives in rapidly changing developing countries like China.

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Abrasive and greedy behaviour of some internet company leaders is turning off the public, investors, and management This was the situation at Uber, resulting in new management at the company. At WeWork there are other problems and behaviours that are seen as totally inappropriate, including partying. Like many internet companies including Uber that investors have shown exuberance about but are losing money, WeWork is a fast growing subleasing company with losses of $1.6 billion in 2018. During a time when a large percentage of Americans lack savings to meet a medical crisis, this sort of behaviour and the greed of a small class of investors who have supported huge valuations in the absence of tangible products of matching value presents a strange picture of America with misguided priorities.

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Ackman fund Pershing Square Holdings raises $3 billion through its IPO on Euronext exchange in Amsterdam. Offering price of $25 dropped 8% to $23.01 in early trading. German online shopping site Zalando traded at 16% below its IPO offering price in Frankfurt, and shares of German internet company Rocket were trading at 17% below IPO offer price in Oct. 2014.

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The Pirate Party enable's participation by members using its software Liquid Level Feedback. It helps harnesss the internet for what it does. As founder Rick Falkvinge and others who see the potential of the internet in new ways put it: first there was the written word for people to communicate by reading, then the printing press of Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, sometime in the mid-15th century, so that people could read in the language written for large numbers of people. Now with binary code and technology for the internet it is possible to communicate for large numbers of people- with a final barrier of language removed with automatic translation- creating an active participatory community. The language barrier removed creates a world community, making the essential step needed to cope with the problems created by industry and finance- which operates in an interconnected manner worldwide without any element of participation of an interconnected community worldwide- as seen in the total lack of participation of the global public experienced during the 2008 global banking and financial crisis. ...

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According to ComScore the Yahoo internet site had 618 million unique desktop visitors globally in October 2015, compared to Facebook's 863 million. But for Yahoo this traffic is not yielding much in terms of revenue and profit. Yahoo's lack of quality content to command premium pricing means a continual decline in ad revenues. Analysts point to the lower quality of traffic on the Yahoo site, fewer direct searches on its site relative to clicks on ads, and aspects of its collaboration with Bing and Google, as serious problems. Compared to Google News, Yahoo News is chaotic and likely to draw less quality traffic, with the addition of Kate Couric and other commentary not having much impact on the gradual deterioration of the site. Facebook is dominant in mobile with $3.4 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2015, compared to $271 million for Yahoo. As a result Yahoo's internet site based on its current share price in Dec. 2015 shows a small or insignificant valuation considering the level of traffic. ...

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Manjoo says Mayer's failure at Yahoo comes from making small moves but not acting as a transformational CEO by changing Yahoo's business. He says three years later apart from small acquisitions such as Tumblr Yahoo's business was the same as before. By Nov. 2015 the Board and investors appeared to be saying that Mayer had run out of time to make the changes needed to preserve Yahoo's U.S. internet business.

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The rulings in Britain for "duty of care" protect a customer or worker from harm. The rule "to love your neighbor becomes in law "you must not injure your neighbor." This is the new idea that the British government is moving forward so that the internet as public space is protected for all who use it. It does not state how many fire extinguishers are to be installed in a public building. Britain's Health and Safety Act simply requires the owners to do all that is needed to protect the users and occupants from harm. Since 1945 this is the foundation for heath and safety laws in the U.S. and in the UK.  This is the principle that 2 researchers Mr. Perrin and Ms. Woods have come up to tackle the protection of the internet as public a space. Perrin is a civil servant and founder of Ofcom, the UK's version of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission regulator. Woods is a professor of internet law at Essex University. It is now part of the legislation proposed by Boris Johnson's government in The Queen's Speech outlining government priorities. A new regulator would have the power to require companies to protect users of public spaces (the internet) from online harms such as pornography, extreme content, cyber bullying. The 2017 suicide death of Molly Russell a British teenager made this a priority for the government. The French government is also proposing rules based on this principle. ...

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China is implementing president Xi Jinping's policy to reduce foreign influence in China's internet, and promote local tech suppliers. Restrictive policies went into effect for IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Qualcomm, to reduce their influence in China's core tech industries. Apple remained an exception till April 2016 when Apple was asked to shut down Apple iBooks and iTunes services in China. China sees this as an effort to promote in Jinping's words local "high quality content with positive voices for a healthy, positive culture that is a force for good.," according to Xinhua news service. It also increases the role of Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent in the internet in China.

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Gordon Crovitz points out in this op-ed that an issue of this importance of preserving an open and independent internet free of influence of governments and politicians, should not be left to the Assistant Secretary of the Commerce Department and administration officials. He points out the need for Congress to play a role in determining the future openness and independent nature of the internet free of politics and governments. He says the Obama administration's move to use the Dotcom Act to transfer the role now played by ICANN to a new body in which other governments say they want to play a major role, is a mistake as it risks the very openness of the internet that has been its core quality and mission till now. Doing this by July 2016, in 30 days following its submission to Congress by the Obama administration, is prevented by Senator Ted Cruz's effort in Congress requiring clear approval by Congress. The U.S. has a unique role in this respect because of its role in defending freedom of speech since its founding, a role found nowhere else in the world. ...