Introduction
“People have known for decades that each time they place an order from a mail-order catalogue or contribute to a political cause, they are adding information to a database. ... People are isolated in their reflections about their electronic personae. On the Internet, such matters are more likely to find a collective voice.”
- Sherry Turkle, Virtuality and its Discontents (1995)
“I see one important future thread in the WWW having nothing to do with marketing, selling, or other commercial activities, but just the way that individuals create a persistent identity for themselves in cyberspace.”
- Tim O’Reilly, Cork Express (1995)