Estonia has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world.[1] Computerization and digital connection for people are encouraged and supported by the state. The country has digital ID card system,[2] and in 2005 local elections were held with the official possibility to vote online — the first case of its kind in the world.[3]
In the first quarter of 2010, 75% out of 1.34 million people in the country used internet according to Statistics Estonia.[4]
Mass usage of computing networks first came with FidoNet, the first Estonian node of which appeared in 1989.[5] In the early 1990s Internet connections began to appear, and the national domain (.ee) was registered in the middle of 1992. By virtue of its geographical location, the country played important role in transporting Internet culture to neighbouring Russia. One of the first backbone links for Russia was built in 1991 by Relcom through Estonia to Finland.[6]
In the year 1965 the first in the USSR school computer Ural-1 was set up in the town of Nõo. In 1996 Estonian president Lennart Meri started the four-year state program "Tiigrihüpe" to computerize and internetize all of the country's schools (Russia accomplished the alike task in the fall of 2007). In the summer of 2005, Tallinn court sentenced a 22-year citizen to pay 3000 krooni (€190) for the insult in an Internet forum.[7]
The country's most popular search engine is the local Neti.ee.[8]
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