For the record, Al Gore never said he invented the Internet.

Since the Presidential election in 2000, Al Gore has been dogged by stories that he somehow claimed to have invented the internet. This is patently false - Al Gore most definitely did not invent the Internet. What is more, he never said he did.

Al Gore told Wolf Blitzer in a 1999 interview for CNN that during his tenure in Congress, he, "took the initiative in creating the Internet." He was actually speaking of various initiatives that came to him for funding. His assistance and approval of further funding did indeed help the project to continue, and the modern Internet came to fruition as a result. Like any politician with so sizable a feather in his cap, he was taking credit for his role in this. Further, either Tim Berners-Lee or Vinton Cerf can easily claim to have, "invented the internet," depending on how you define the internet; In fact, Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, which is just one application of the internet, while Cerf was on the project team that developed the TCP/IP protocols used to transmit information on the internet.

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)