That file was electronic message, so suddenly in about 1971, we had e-mail. So an e-mail was pretty much the major use of the internet for the next 20 years.
Those who came of age in the "You've got mail" era can reminisce fondly about arriving home from school and checking their AOL accounts to see if anyone sent them an electronicmessage.
When Bavarian prosecutors launched their investigation, CompuServe, based in Columbus, Ohio, blocked access to 200 electronicmessage boards for all of its then four million users worldwide, setting off an international debate over censorship on the internet.
