


1 Deep Web tool found in a December 1996 press release. Koll of Personal Library Software, in a description of the No. I call that the invisible Web.Īnother early use of the term Invisible Web was by Bruce Mount and Matthew B. It would be a site that's possibly reasonably designed, but they didn't bother to register it with any of the search engines. Bergman cited a January 1996 article by Frank Garcia: Non-indexed content īergman, in a paper on the deep web published in The Journal of Electronic Publishing, mentioned that Jill Ellsworth used the term Invisible Web in 1994 to refer to websites that were not registered with any search engine. While the deep web is a reference to any site that cannot be accessed through a traditional search engine, the dark web is a portion of the deep web that has been intentionally hidden and is inaccessible through standard browsers and methods. Wired reporters Kim Zetter and Andy Greenberg recommend the terms be used in distinct fashions. Since then, after their use in the media's reporting on the Silk Road, media outlets have taken to using 'deep web' synonymously with the dark web or darknet, a comparison some reject as inaccurate and consequently has become an ongoing source of confusion. Those criminal activities include the commerce of personal passwords, false identity documents, drugs, firearms, and child pornography. The first conflation of the terms "deep web" with " dark web" came about in 2009 when deep web search terminology was discussed together with illegal activities taking place on the Freenet and darknet.
