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An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup.[clarification needed]
In its original more limited definition, it referred only to a commercial computer communication service in which paid members could dial via a computer modem the service's private computer network and access various services and information resources such as bulletin board systems, downloadablefiles and programs, news articles, chat rooms, and electronic mail services. The term "online service" was also used in references to these dial-up services. The traditional dial-up online service differed from the modern Internet service provider in that they provided a large degree of content that was only accessible by those who subscribed to the online service, while ISP mostly serves to provide access to the Internet and generally provides little if any exclusive content of its own.
(A) As used in subsection (a), the term "service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user's choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received. (B) As used in this section, other than subsection (a), the term "service provider" means a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefore, and includes an entity described in subparagraph (A).[1]
These broad definitions make it possible for numerous web businesses to benefit from the OCILLA.
History
The first commercial online services went live in 1979. CompuServe (owned in the 1980s and 1990s by H&R Block) and The Source (for a time owned by The Reader's Digest) are considered the first major online services created to serve the market of personal computer users. Utilizing text-based interfaces and menus, these services allowed anyone with a modem and communications software to use email, chat, news, financial and stock information, bulletin boards, special interest groups (SIGs), forums and general information. Subscribers could exchange email only with other subscribers of the same service. (For a time a service called DASnet carried mail among several online services, and CompuServe, MCI Mail, and other services experimented with X.400 protocols to exchange email until the Internet rendered these outmoded.)
Other text-based online services followed such as Delphi, GEnie and MCI Mail. The 1980s also saw the rise of independent Computer Bulletin Boards, or BBSes. (Online services are not BBSes. An online service may contain an electronic bulletin board, but the term "BBS" is reserved for independent dialup, microcomputer-based services that are usually single-user systems.)
The commercial services used pre-existing packet-switched (X.25) data communications networks, or the services' own networks (as with CompuServe). In either case, users dialed into local access points and were connected to remote computer centers where information and services were located. As with telephone service, subscribers paid by the minute, with separate day-time and evening/weekend rates.
As the use of computers that supported color and graphics, such the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, Apple II, and early IBM PC compatibles, increased, online services gradually developed framed or partially graphical information displays. Early services such as CompuServe added increasingly sophisticated graphics-based front end software to present their information, though they continued to offer text-based access for those who needed or preferred it. In 1985 Viewtron, which began as a Videotex service requiring a dedicated terminal, introduced software allowing home computer owners access. Beginning in the mid-1980s graphics based online services such as PlayNET, Prodigy, and Quantum Link (aka Q-Link) were developed. Quantum Link, which was based on Commodore-only Playnet software, later developed AppleLink Personal Edition, PC-Link (based on Tandy's DeskMate), and Promenade (for IBM), all of which (including Q-Link) were later combined as America Online.
These online services presaged the web browser that would change global online life 10 years later. Before Quantum Link, Apple computer had developed its own service, called AppleLink, which was mostly a support network targeted at Apple dealers and developers. Later, Apple offered the short-lived eWorld, targeted at Mac consumers and based on the Mac version of the America Online software.
Beginning in 1992, the Internet, which had previously been limited to government, academic, and corporate research settings, was opened to commercial entities. The first online service to offer Internet access was DELPHI, which had developed TCP/IP access much earlier, in connection with an environmental group that rated Internet access.[citation needed]
The explosion of popularity of the World Wide Web in 1994 accelerated the development of the Internet as an information and communication resource for consumers and businesses. The sudden availability of low- to no-cost email and appearance of free independent web sites broke the business model that had supported the rise of the early online service industry.
CompuServe, BIX, AOL, DELPHI, and Prodigy gradually added access to Internet e-mail, Usenet newsgroups, ftp, and to web sites. At the same time, they moved from usage-based billing to monthly subscriptions. Similarly, companies that paid to have AOL host their information or early online stores began to develop their own web sites, putting further stress on the economics of the online industry. Only the largest services like AOL (which later acquired CompuServe, just as CompuServe acquired The Source) were able to make the transition to the Internet-centric world.
A new class of online service provider arose to provide access to the Internet, the internet service provider or ISP. Internet-only service providers like UUNET, The Pipeline, Panix, Netcom, the World, EarthLink, and MindSpring provided no content of their own, concentrating their efforts on making it easy for nontechnical users to install the various software required to "get online" before consumer operating systems came internet-enabled out of the box. In contrast to the online services' multitiered per-minute or per-hour rates, many ISPs offered flat-fee, unlimited access plans. These providers first offered access through telephone and modem, just as did the early online services providers. Today these independent ISPs have largely been supplanted by high speed and broadband access through cable and phone companies, as well as wireless access.
The importance of the online services industry was vital in "paving the road" for the information superhighway. When Mosaic and Netscape were released in 1994, they had a ready audience of more than 10 million people who were able to download their first web browser through an online service. Though ISPs quickly began offering software packages with setup to their customers, this brief period gave many users their first online experience.
Two online services in particular, Prodigy and AOL, are often confused with the Internet, or the origins of the Internet. Prodigy's Chief Technical Officer said in 1999: "Eleven years ago, the Internet was just an intangible dream that Prodigy brought to life. Now it is a force to be reckoned with." Despite that statement, neither service provided the back bone for the Internet, nor did either start the Internet.
Online service interfaces
The first online service used a simple text-based interface in which content was largely text only and users made choices via a command prompt. This allowed just about any computer with a modem and terminal communications program the ability to access these text-based online services. CompuServe would later offer, with the advent of the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows-based PCs, a GUI interface program for their service. This provided a very rudimentary GUI interface. CompuServe continued to offer text-only access for those needing it. Online services like Prodigy and AOL developed their online service around a GUI and thus unlike CompuServe's early GUI-based software, these online services provided a more robust GUI interface. Early GUI-based online service interfaces offered little in the way of detailed graphics such as photographs or pictures. Largely they were limited to simple icons and buttons and text. As modem speed increased it became more feasible to offer images and other more complicated graphics to users thus providing a nicer look to their services
Common resources provided by online services
Some of the resources and services online services have provided access to include message boards, chat services, electronic mail, file archives, current news and weather, online encyclopedias, airline reservations, and online games. Major online service providers like Compuserve also served as a way for software and hardware manufacturers to provide online support for their products via forums and file download areas within the online service provider's network. Prior to the advent of the web, such support had to be done either via an online service or a private bulletin board system run by the company and accessed over a direct phone line.
Responsibility
Depending on the jurisdiction there may be rules exempting an OSP from responsibility for content provided by users, but with a ' notice and take down (NTD) obligation to remove unacceptable content as soon as it is noticed.
AOL is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc.
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), was a computer server running software that allowed users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.
Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line. Dial-up connections use modems to decode audio signals into data to send to a router or computer, and to encode signals from the latter two devices to send to another modem at the ISP.
CompuServe was an American online service, the first major commercial one in the world. It opened in 1969 as a timesharing and remote access service marketed to corporations. After a successful 1979 venture selling otherwise under-utilized after-hours time to Radio Shack customers, the system was opened to the public, roughly the same time as The Source. H&R Block bought the company in 1980 and began to more aggressively advertise the service.
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal.
GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS, that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users. It was one of the pioneering services in the field, though eventually replaced by the World Wide Web and graphics-based services, most notably AOL.
CIX is an online conferencing service developed by CIX Online Ltd. Founded in 1983 as a FidoNet bulletin board system, it is one of the oldest British Internet service providers.
Prodigy Communications Corporation was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services. It was one of the major internet service providers of the 1990s.
AppleLink was the name of both Apple Computer's online service for its dealers, third-party developers, and users, and the client software used to access it. Prior to the commercialization of the Internet, AppleLink was a popular service for Mac and Apple IIGS users. The service was offered from about 1986 to 1994 to various groups, before being superseded by their short-lived eWorld and finally today's multiple Apple websites.
Online service provider law is a summary and case law tracking page for laws, legal decisions and issues relating to online service providers (OSPs), like the Wikipedia and Internet service providers, from the viewpoint of an OSP considering its liability and customer service issues. See Cyber law for broader coverage of the law of cyberspace.
eWorld was an online service operated by Apple Inc. between June 1994 and March 1996. The services included email, news, software installs and a bulletin board system. Users of eWorld were often referred to as "ePeople."
A shell account is a user account on a remote server, typically running under Unix or Linux operating systems. The account gives access to a text-based command-line interface in a shell, via a terminal emulator. The user typically communicates with the server via the SSH protocol. In the early days of the Internet, one would connect using a modem.
Trespass to chattels is a tort whereby the infringing party has intentionally interfered with another person's lawful possession of a chattel. The interference can be any physical contact with the chattel in a quantifiable way, or any dispossession of the chattel. As opposed to the greater wrong of conversion, trespass to chattels is argued to be actionable per se.
NavCIS was CompuServe Information Service's client program for automated connections to the CompuServe Information Service, at a time when online use was priced per minute. It was largely an offline reader, downloading both email and new messages from selected forums, and then disconnecting. The user could then read and reply to these messages offline, and send all of their replies back in a similarly quick connection. Unlike most offline readers, NavCIS also allowed the user to select files for upload and download, and included a system for scripting the session.
Connect Business Information Network, formerly known as MacNET, was a proprietary dial-up online network with a graphic user interface similar to AppleLink.
RoboBOARD/FX was the third generation Bulletin Board System hosting package released by Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc of Canada, programmed by owner Seth Hamilton in 1993. It was the follow-up to ROBO-BOARD Pro and ROBO-BOARD Plus which first utilized groundbreaking Remote Imaging Protocol developed by TeleGrafix Communications, which was also known as RIPscrip.
Online games are video games played over a computer network. The evolution of these games parallels the evolution of computers and computer networking, with new technologies improving the essential functionality needed for playing video games on a remote server. Many video games have an online component, allowing players to play against or cooperatively with players across a network around the world.
The Pipeline was one of the earliest American Internet service providers. It was founded in December 1993 in New York City by the science and technology writer James Gleick and computer programmer Uday Ivatury, who had met at the Manhattan Bridge Club and shared an interest in online bridge. Both men believed that a graphical user interface would make the Internet more widely accessible than the command-line Unix commands that were then generally necessary.
MSN Dial-up is an Internet service provider operated by Microsoft in the United States and formerly also in several other countries. Originally named The Microsoft Network, it debuted as a proprietary online service on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of Windows 95. In 1996 and 1997, a revised web-based version of the ISP was an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet.
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